FKA Twigs is in negotiations to portray groundbreaking singer and actress Josephine Baker in a new biopic.
As well as being a Grammy nominated music artist, whose last album ‘Eusexua’ was released in January, FKA Twigs has starred in many film projects. She won praise for her performance in 2019 drama Honey Boy with Shia LaBeouf, and last year appeared opposite Bill Skarsgård in a remake of The Crow. She is currently filming horror The Carpenter’s Son with Nicolas Cage.
Josephine Baker is seen as a pivotal figure both for representation in cinema and the civil rights movement. American born, but spending most of her life in Paris, she performed in the music halls of the city, becoming an iconic figure of the 1920s. She would become the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics.
In addition to a career in entertainment, she also worked with the French Resistance during World War II, as well as the British and US Secret Services, according to documents declassified by the French government in 2020. The news led to public demand for Baker to be honoured at the Panthéon in Paris, a mausoleum for great figures of French history. She died in 1975 aged 68.
Baker has been portrayed many times on film and television – Diana Ross played her during her 1977 stage show An Evening With Diana Ross; HBO produced 1991 biopic The Josephine Baker Story; and she has been portrayed as a supporting character in the 2002 film Frida with Salma Hayek, and Woody Allen’s 2011 comedy Midnight In Paris.
According to a report from Variety, the film is yet to be titled or have a release date, but will be directed by Maïmouna Doucouré, the French filmmaker known for 2020 film festival hit Cuties.
In March, FKA Twigs shared a cinematic video for ‘Childlike Things’, starring North West and Kevin Smith.