Trailer for 'Venus Noire' (Black Venus)

Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, the film is described as brutal, unrelenting.

Here's a bit from the Seattle International Film Festival:

A must for those who love films about the forgotten corners of history, director Abdellatif Kechiche relates the intriguing story of Saartjie Baartman, the Khoikoi tribeswoman (admirably played by newcomer Yahima Torres) from southern Africa who was dragged around Europe in the early 19th century as a freakshow exhibit. Known as the “Hottentot Venus,” for her outsize features, she was a source of widespread fascination, leading to constant humiliation as she was made to perform like a circus dancing bear and poked, prodded, and gaped at by all.

And a clip from the Seattle weekly The Stranger:

The black woman is on all fours. She growls like a wild animal at the white audience in a Paris salon.
...
A white man/master holds the leash on her. She pulls on the leash and threatens a white woman with her teeth, and the white woman screams in fear. A dashing and fearless white man approaches the black beast, assumes control of the leash, straddles her, and repeatedly, powerfully, heroically slaps her big buttocks. He tames the African animal.

Plays at SIFF (Egyptian Theater) tonight, 8:30.