The paper will address the narrative and visual strategies that recent French and francophone films employ. How are African and Arab women represented in contemporary French and francophone urban cinema? What shared and or dissimilar narrative strategy does recent francophone cinema use to address processes of immigration, marginalization and sexuality. Can this be called a distinct and recent genre or do such narratives have some of their roots in such ethnic American cinema as the African American cinema of the Civil Rights era and after. Alternatively, how might various narrative regimes determine the production and reception of this recent cycle of French films? The cinema of Spike Lee is a fine example of this concern with immigration, marginalization, and sexuality in one urban space-New York City.

The discussion will focus on films that dramatize metropolitan encounters that Africans and Arabs have in the land of their former French colonizers. The historical span is limited to films made during the last decade. Tentatively, the films include but are not limited to Philippe Faucon's Samia (2000), Daniel Vigne's Fatou la malienne (2001), and Fabrice Genestal's La squale (2001).