FKA Twigs as Josephine Baker: Everything We Know About the Biopic
TL;DR: FKA Twigs is in serious negotiations to star as Josephine Baker in a French-backed biopic directed by Maïmouna Doucouré, with filming expected to begin in 2026. Backed by Baker's own sons and unveiled by StudioCanal at a CanalPlus showcase in Paris, this is one of the most anticipated biopics in development right now. No streaming platform or release date has been confirmed yet — but Movie OTT will have the latest availability the moment it lands.
The Performer Who Could Actually Pull This Off
There's a version of this casting announcement that makes complete sense the instant you hear it — and then there's the version where you sit with it for a moment and realize it's almost too perfect. FKA Twigs, the British artist born Tahliah Debrett Barnett, has spent her entire career occupying exactly the kind of space Josephine Baker invented: the intersection of movement, music, spectacle, and defiance. When word emerged that Twigs has auditioned and is now in serious negotiations to portray Baker in a major French biopic, the reaction across entertainment circles wasn't surprise. It was something closer to inevitability.
The film is being directed by Maïmouna Doucouré, the French-Senegalese filmmaker best known internationally for Cuties (2020). It's backed by StudioCanal and has been in development since 2022, with the blessing — and active involvement — of Baker's sons Jean-Claude and Brian Bouillon Baker. Filming is expected to begin in 2026.
What We Know for Certain: Cast, Director, and Timeline
Here's the verified core of what's been confirmed so far:
- Lead actress: FKA Twigs (in negotiations; auditioned for the role)
- Director: Maïmouna Doucouré (Cuties, 2020)
- Studio: StudioCanal, unveiled at a CanalPlus showcase in Paris
- Production backing: Jean-Claude Baker and Brian Bouillon Baker, Josephine Baker's sons
- Development began: 2022
- Filming target: 2026
- Release date: Not yet confirmed
The project was teased publicly when Doucouré appeared at the CanalPlus Paris showcase and gestured toward Twigs as her vision for the lead — a moment captured and shared widely, as noted in Maïmouna Doucouré's teaser appearance discussing FKA Twigs in the role. That video alone sent the film industry into something of a frenzy.
What's striking is how deliberately the production has moved. Three years in development before cameras roll isn't unusual for a prestige biopic of this scale, but the family's direct involvement gives this project a weight that most biopics simply don't have. Baker's sons aren't just lending their mother's name — they're co-shepherding the narrative. That matters enormously when the subject is someone whose life story has been simplified, exoticized, or outright misrepresented for decades.
Why This Biopic Is Different From What Came Before
Josephine Baker has been portrayed on screen before. The most notable precedent is the 1991 HBO film The Josephine Baker Story, in which Lynn Whitfield delivered a performance that earned her a Golden Globe. Whitfield's portrayal is still considered the definitive screen version — which makes the new biopic's ambitions both exciting and risky.
What Doucouré's film is promising, at least in intent, is something more expansive. Baker's life wasn't a single story. She was a Jazz Age entertainer who became a global superstar in Paris during the 1920s, a World War II spy who worked with the French Resistance, and a civil rights activist who marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington in 1963. She adopted twelve children from different countries — her so-called "Rainbow Tribe" — and was the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture. Any biopic that tries to contain all of that is either going to be three hours long or will have to make some very hard choices.
Hard to say if Doucouré will lean into the spy thriller dimension, the civil rights chapter, or the sheer theatrical excess of Baker's performance career. My instinct — and I keep coming back to this — is that a director who made Cuties specifically to interrogate how society sexualizes young girls is going to be very interested in how Baker weaponized that same gaze and turned it into power.
Harlem World Magazine reported on the StudioCanal announcement alongside other major French productions, positioning the Baker biopic as one of StudioCanal's flagship prestige projects heading into the second half of the decade.
What Doucouré and the Producers Have Said
Jean-Claude Baker, who spent decades promoting his adopted mother's legacy and authored a biography of her, has long been vocal about the need for a film that treats Baker as the full, complicated human being she was — not a caricature of feathers and bananas. His involvement as a producer signals that the screenplay is unlikely to flatten her into a feel-good triumph narrative.
Doucouré, for her part, has spoken about her personal connection to Baker's story as a French-African woman navigating questions of identity and belonging in France. "Josephine Baker is a symbol of freedom and resilience," Doucouré has stated in relation to the project — a woman who "chose France" when America refused to give her the dignity she deserved, and who then risked that adopted home by spying against the Nazis.
(Disclosure: Movie OTT reached out to StudioCanal for additional comment on the project's timeline but had not received a response at the time of publication.)
How This Lands for Indian Audiences and OTT Availability
For Indian audiences, Josephine Baker isn't necessarily a household name the way she is in France or among older American viewers — but that's precisely what makes this biopic an opportunity rather than a limitation. The story of a Black American woman who had to leave her country to be treated as a full human being, who then became a global icon through sheer force of talent and will, translates across cultures in ways that don't require prior knowledge.
Where to watch: No streaming platform has been announced yet for the Doucouré biopic. Given StudioCanal's distribution relationships, European streaming rights could land with platforms like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video — both of which operate robust services in India. Movie OTT's where-to-watch tracker will update the moment Indian streaming rights are confirmed across Netflix India, Amazon Prime Video India, JioCinema, SonyLIV, or any other platform.
For context on Baker's existing screen presence in India, the 1991 HBO film The Josephine Baker Story is periodically available on international streaming platforms accessible via VPN, though it has no dedicated Indian OTT listing currently. The documentary on Baker's life — narrated by Arsenio Hall and featuring interviews with Debbie Allen and Lynn Whitfield — offers the richest existing portrait of her legacy for viewers who want to prepare for the biopic.
FKA Twigs and Maïmouna Doucouré: Why This Pairing Makes Sense
FKA Twigs — born in 1988 in Cheltenham, England — is one of the most physically extraordinary performers working today. Her music videos are essentially short films, dense with choreography, visual symbolism, and emotional precision. She's a trained dancer, a vocalist, a multi-instrumentalist, and increasingly, an actress: her role as Shia LaBeouf's love interest in Honey Boy (2019) was critically praised, and she's been building her screen career methodically ever since.
Playing Josephine Baker demands exactly that combination. Baker wasn't just a singer or just a dancer — she was a total performance organism, someone who understood the stage as a political space. Twigs, who has spoken publicly about surviving an abusive relationship and processing that experience through her art, brings a biographical rawness that a more conventionally glamorous casting choice wouldn't.
Maïmouna Doucouré made Cuties in 2020 — a film that was wildly misunderstood on its initial Netflix release but is, on careful viewing, a pointed critique of exactly the forces it was accused of celebrating. Her ability to handle material that society finds uncomfortable, and to center the inner life of a young woman navigating impossible expectations, makes her a genuinely interesting choice to tell Baker's story. Not the obvious choice. The interesting one.
What to Watch for as the Production Moves Toward 2026
Filming is targeted for 2026, which means a theatrical release is most likely 2027 at the earliest — possibly 2028 if post-production runs long, as prestige biopics often do. The next major milestone to watch is a formal casting confirmation from StudioCanal, which would lock Twigs into the role officially rather than the current "serious negotiations" status.
A screenplay writer has not yet been publicly named, which is worth watching. The writer will determine how much of Baker's WWII chapter and civil rights work gets foregrounded versus her entertainment career. For streaming availability across every region — India, the US, the UK, and Spain — Movie OTT tracks releases the moment distribution deals are signed, so bookmark it now if you don't want to miss the announcement.
This one is worth the wait. Genuinely.
