In unexpected news, Grammy Award winning artist FKA Twigs will play Jazz Age great Josephine Baker in an upcoming biopic. Not only that, but the film will be directed by Maïmouna Doucouré, whose 2020 Netflix film Cuties sparked wild controversy for its alleged sexualized depiction of a girl dance troupe.
The film will be directed and written by Doucouré, with the plan for it to hit the Cannes sales market. This will be the first major telling of Baker’s story to have the estate’s full support. The most prominent film before now was 1991’s The Josephine Baker Story, with Lynn Whitfield giving a memorable lead performance.
Baker was an American-born entertainer who moved to Paris in the 1920s and rose to fame during the Jazz Age, known for her charismatic stage presence and exotic dance routines. Baker would later join the French Resistance during WWII, and later became a prominent figure in the civil rights movement. She never got the respect she was due here in America, however.
Doucouré has been attached to this Josephine Baker film since 2022. Following the Cuties nonsense, she directed the French drama Hawa.
For FKA Twigs, this continues an acting career that is quickly gaining steam with recent roles in Mother Mary, The Carpenter’s Son, and The Crow. [ScreenDaily]
