Harlem

Harlem, 1931. In the heart of the Great Depression, invention is the mother of necessity to make ends meet. Stéphanie St. Clair, known as ‘Queenie’, had already understood this when she landed in New York almost twenty years before. Inventiveness when you are a woman and you are black is much more than a necessity. It’s a question of survival. In a few years, this young immigrant West Indian servant freed herself from the weight of ancestral servitude. Even better, she created her own American dream: the underground Harlem numbers game. Hers is an ascent that makes people cringe, both with the local authorities and the white mafia. Dutch Schultz, aka. the Dutchman, an unscrupulous mafioso, intends to take control of the kingdom of the “Frenchy.” But that’s without taking into account the determination and impetuosity of Queenie, whose heavy past continues to guide her steps… After the critically acclaimed Giant and Bootblack, Mikaël takes us to the Harlem of the prohibition for the final chapter of his New York triptych in sumptuous chiaroscuro, to meet a woman as strong as she is enigmatic.