The film itself – released as “Mignonnes” in France – has not caused such a stir. Doucouré’s debut feature, it follows the story of 11-year-old Amy (Youssouf) as she struggles to find her place in life. At home, Amy should be happy with her mother, a Muslim from Senegal, but she is attracted to a group of friends who have their own dance group.
Doucouré said in June during an interview at the Sundance Film Festival that the idea for “Cuties” came to her in part after attending an event in Paris, where she was watching a group of 11-year-olds who ‘ t performed a highly sexualized dance. “I was so shocked,” she said. ‘To me it was just,’ Oh my God. What do I see? ” Many of the children’s parents, who also saw the show, wore traditional religious dress, she added, and the culture shock fascinated them.
While researching the film, Doucouré was concerned about how social media pressured children to dress provocatively, she said.
In France, where the film was released in theaters on August 19, “Cuties” did not cause any controversy. Clarisse Fabre, who reviewed the film for Le Monde, said: “The filmmaker reveals the ability to judge the very explicit sexualization of dance routines.” She called it a ‘must see.’ Le Figaro, another newspaper, also called it a ‘movie to watch’.
Reviewers at Sundance also did not see the film as fetishistic. “The sight of twerking preteen bodies is explicitly designed to shock adult audiences in a consideration of the current destruction of innocence,” Fionnuala Halligan wrote in Screen Daily, but she added that the film ultimately failed because it too tried hard to provoke censorship.
Doucouré did not comment on the fist as the artwork, and her representative did not respond Friday to a request for an interview. But she may appreciate some of the ongoing debate over the sexualization of children in society. “We can not continue to close our eyes here,” she said in the interview on Sundance.
