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This year, the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, offers a selection "Black Light", a panorama in 17 films of the black question in the cinema of the twentieth century, from Europe to the United States , passing through the Caribbean and South America.

with our special correspondent in Locarno, Elisabeth Lequeret

Neither can one speak of a single Africa, one can not envisage the black cinema as a whole. It is with this in mind that the festival proposes this year, the retrospective Black Light . A selection of 17 films to see how since the 20's authors from around the world have seized the black question in the cinema. 17 films often little diffused, to discover so.

For director Alice Diop , a member of the jury this year in Locarno, this is a unique opportunity to right a cultural injustice. " I welcome this initiative by its magnitude: there are a lot of films that have circulated very little and I am very happy to be able to discover them. This places this cinema in the great history of cinema. It is not only a strong political act but something essential, necessary! "

In the retrospective Black light we can discover films Oscar Micheaux , pioneer of African-American cinema, member of the NAACP (civil rights organization) and author of some forty films, some of which have been censored.

► to read also : When America makes its cinema in black and white

Iconic works from Blaxploitation of the 1970s, films in which the blacks have the lead, and many other essential films, like John Singleton's Boyz in the hood (1992), Rue Cases Negres (1983), Euzhan Palcy , or Marcel Camus ' Orfeu Negro , a tragic love affair at the Rio Carnival, Cannes' Golden Palm in 1959.