Maïmouna Doucouré is a great French-Senegalese director. Despite the mixed reactions around her film «Mignonnes», the genius of the French director’s cinematographic art does not fade. It is impossible to fall into disgrace when we talk about such realistic themes. She illustrates herself in a technique of which she seems the only one to have the secret: polygamy. She emphasizes the complex relationships children have with polygamy. An avant-garde with a unique style that the world never ceases to celebrate. From «Cache-cache» to «Hawa», all his work is a grandiose fresco in which belong the African traditionalist movements still struggling with modernity.
Born in 1985 in Paris, Maïmouna Doucouré is the daughter of a family of Senegalese immigrants. Coming to France, the family settled in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. The young woman obtained an S baccalaureate and a bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of Paris VI. At the same time, she takes theatre classes in the laboratory of actress Hélène Zidi. In 2012, following a scenario competition initiated by the Social Union for Habitat, she made her first short film on equity entitled «Cache-cache». She won the 3rd HLM Prize and the heart of the jury of the Génération Court festival in Aubervilliers. Then, «Maman» will follow and will collect nearly 60 international awards. This film has brought him into the circle of renowned French creators. In this film, she portrays the rather tormented life of a girl in a polygamous home. A girl that the heat of a home burns so much that she decides to kill her father’s second wife.
But, Maïmouna Doucouré’s film that will make people talk about her is «Mignonnes». Made in 2017, this film comes out on screens in 2020. He received the Global Filmmaking Award. That same year, the film was nominated for Césars in the “Best First Film” category. It’s the story of a group of hypersexualized pre-teens. Amy, the main character, is under attack.
The United States, which abounds in this kind of scandal-ridden film, castigated the film. The director is accused of promoting «the obscene exhibition of the genitals of minors, soliciting a lustful interest for sex». Yet it is quite the opposite. The film denounces, according to the director, the early sexualization of girls who allow themselves to be carried away by sexual excesses amplified by social networks. Censorship is like yeast. It makes the sauce rise. The media storm has no control over the film, which in 2019 receives the Academy of Oscars Gold Fellowship for Women. What’s in this movie to make so much talk.
Amy, the heroine, is a pre-teen girl of one-year-old from Senegal. She lives in a tiny apartment in the north of Paris with her mother and two brothers. As in «Maman», Amy sees her family – a polygamous family – going to the dogs. The suffering her mother is experiencing is hard on her. The country wants to go back to Senegal with the second woman. She is fed up with collective prayer and all that has to do with tradition. Faced with her aunt’s advice, she turned a deaf ear. She discovered dancing with Angelica. Through hard work, she joined a dance group «Mignonnes» title of the film. There, the film begins. Light outfit, daring gesture, sensual, borderline pornographic. Quite the opposite of what her aunt strives to teach her. The school humiliations and negative reactions, and the daring photos that leaked on social media, all this cocktail drive the girl to depression. Family problems eventually transform the girl who now shows herself as a socialite.
