Les Sœurs Nardal, les oubliées de la Negritude

Les Sœurs Nardal, les oubliées de la Négritude (The Nardal Sisters, the Forgotten of Négritude)

Directed by Léa Mormin-Chauvac and Marie-Christine Gambart, 2022, France, 52'

The founding fathers of Négritude are well-known: Aimé Césaire, Leopold Sédar Senghor, Leon Damas. But would this movement even have existed without the Nardals? The men rarely mentioned the influence of sisters Paulette, Jane and Andrée Nardal, although they were central figures of intellectual black life in Paris in the 1920s and developed theories about Black consciousness and its awakening. In the film Les Sœurs Nardal, les oubliées de la Négritude (The Nardal Sisters, the Forgotten of Négritude, 2022), Léa Mormin-Chauvac and Marie-Christine Gambart shed light on their pioneering role in creating the foundations of black consciousness and the Négritude movement. In the film and in the book Les sœurs Nardal: À l'avant-garde de la cause noire (The Nardal Sisters: At the forefront of the Black Liberation Struggle), published in 2024, Mormin-Chauvac traces their lives, from Fort-de-France to Paris as well as to England and the USA — where Paulette worked as a delegate to the United Nations. Both works contribute to honoring the feminist and anti-racist commitment of the sisters.