Les héritières (2021)

Vignette | Left | Entrance to Henri-IV High School in Paris. Sanou Diallo is admitted to the equal-opportunity program, allowing her to complete her sophomore year at Henri-IV in Paris, thanks to her excellent academic results and the determination of Madame Lebel, the senior education adviser at her middle school in La Plaine Saint-Denis, who urges her to pursue this path. However, when the school year begins at the prestigious Parisian school, the social and cultural differences between the young girl and her classmates quickly become apparent, as does a certain disdain from some of her teachers. Still, Sanou is determined and holds on to this opportunity. She tutors a young middle-school student, Khady, who comes from the same priority education zone as she does—a requirement for receiving a scholarship and housing. Faced with agonizing choices, the young girl goes so far as to distance herself from her Guinean-born family in order to give herself the best possible chance of getting into a prestigious engineering school and achieving her goal of working in renewable energy. Despite the difficulties, Sanou seems capable of fulfilling her ambitions, while Khady, more constrained by a certain degree of social determinism, ultimately decides not to follow this path, even though it had seemed within her reach.