Belle

Next week the independent film Belle will hit theatres in the USA.  I had the privilege of seeing the film in February at the Athena Film Festival in NYC.

Belle is an historical drama based on the real life of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a mixed-raced British aristocrat who lived the late 1700s.  Dido was the child of an enslaved African woman and an admiral in the British navy;  the two likely encountered each other in the West Indies.  Her mother is believed to have died when Dido was very young and her father sent her to be raised by his uncle, an Earl and Chief Justice, in England where she was raised as a gentlewoman along with her white cousin Elizabeth.  The film was inspired by the painting the Earl had commissioned of his two nieces in 1779 and which still exists to this day.

The film examines what Dido's life may have been like given the real people she would have encountered in her life as well as the historical events that impacted her and her family.  Portrayed by the young British actress Gugu Mbatha-Ra, the film allows us to begin to understand the complex intersections of race, gender, and class that Dido had to negotiate, and to honor the courage and strength of Dido and her family in making the choices (large and small) that they did and the impact those choice can have.

Watch the trailer here:


When speaking after the film screening at the Athena Film Festival, director Amma Asante expanded on the goal of the film besides just bringing the story