“Nanny,” a supernatural thriller about an undocumented immigrant working for a wealthy New York family, won the Sundance film festival’s top prize Friday.
Nikyatu Jusu’s debut feature, starring Anna Diop and Michelle Monaghan, depicts Senegalese nanny Aisha’s decision to leave her native nation her young son behind in order to start a new life.
“In America in particular, we haven’t seen enough films that truly reflect the disproportionate level of Black and brown women… domestic workers that keep this country afloat,” Jusu told a virtual panel at the festival.
“I wanted to center women who typically are on the periphery of other women’s stories,” said Jusu, a first-generation American whose family is from Sierra Leone.
Diop, the film’s star and star of the television series “Titans,” was born in Senegal and grew up in the United States.
The film, which incorporates elements of horror and African folklore as well as themes of race and motherhood, has yet to be released.
Sundance Film Festival, which promotes independent film, was forced to go virtual for the second year in a row due to an increase of Covid-19 cases across the United States caused by the Omicron version.
The festival, which was founded by Robert Redford, is usually held in the mountains of Utah, in the western United States.
