Sugar Cane Alley

Set in the French colony of Martinique in the 1930s, this stark, charming film takes a look at life in "Rue Cases Negres," a wooden-shack community isolated in the middle of a sugar plantation. While the adults toil in the fields, the children romp the "alley," but for many of the youngsters this will be their last summer on the plantation. The brightest among them will find better jobs or go on to school, while the less fortunate will remain to assist their parents in the fields. Most prominently featured is Jose (Garry Cadenat), a frolicsome 11-year-old who earns a prestigious scholarship to a school in Fort-de-France. This well-acted film is an unexpected deligh...