The film Belle fits together pieces of a historical puzzle, bringing to life a little-known 18th century aristocratic English woman who differed from all her contemporaries in one crucial way: the colour of her skin.
The director Amma Asante, who is herself black, was intrigued when she was shown a postcard of a painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle posing alongside her white cousin Elizabeth - unheard of at that time in English high society.
"The painting was such an evocative portrait because Dido has equal value as Elizabeth in the painting," she explained. "It was inspiration enough for me to jump on board this project."
It took another four years for Asante and the producer Damian Jones to gather enough funding to get the project off the ground.
The film tells how Belle, the child of an admiral and a slave, came to live with her great uncle and his family. Although they are obliged to raise her, she receives inferior treatment - including being excluded from the family dinner table - compared with the other young lady of the house and Belle's friend, Elizabeth.
Belle falls for the local vicar's son John Davinier, played by Sam Reid, who in the film becomes an apprentice lawyer under her uncle's tutelage and goes on to inspire him to make a court ruling in favour of treating slaves as human beings rather than cargo.
"My hope is that this is a universal story and the themes will resonate in this part of the world, too," says Asante. "I love period dramas, and it had always been a dream of mine to make a film that speaks to me in a more direct way."
Asante grew up in South London on an estate where hers was the only black family and the only ones who owned their own home, echoing Belle's status in the film. "We suffered terrible racism - we had lit matches put through our letter boxes. I would walk home from school and be surrounded by men calling me horrible names."
The actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays Belle, said: "This film is not people in rags being beaten, but this is about subtle racism and how that can be just as humiliating but in a different way. No one had to put a spin on it, it's real history. A lot of films have been made about African-American ladies in America, but not about women of colour in Britain."
. Belle is in competition at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival in the New Horizons section
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