Daughters of the Dust

In the winter of 1992, nearly one hundred years after motion pictures were invented, the first nationally distributed feature by an African American woman was released in the United States. Daughters of the Dust, written and directed by Julie Dash, was not only praised by critics but became a word-of-mouth sensation, selling out shows week after week. The New York Times called it a "film of spell-binding visual beauty," and said that Dash "emerges as a strikingly original film maker," and the Village Voice noted that viewers "came in massive groups. They came multiple times." The film tells the story of an African American sea-island, or Gullah, family preparing to come to the mainland at the turn of the century. In her richly textured, highly visual and lyrical portrayal of the day of their departure, Dash evokes the details of a persisting African culture and the tensions between tradition and assimilation. Daughters of the Dust: The Making of an African American Woman's Film, which includes Dash's complete screenplay, describes the story of her extraordinary sixteen-year struggle to complete the project. More than simply a tale of a rising artist, it is the record of an African American woman's determination to tell a story that is both historical and emotionally charged. With an introduction by Toni Cade Bambara, an extended interview with Dash by feminist critic bell hooks, an essay by Greg Tate, Dash's story in her own words, and sixteen pages of brilliant full-color images from the film by cinematographer Arthur Jafa, this is an important book for every admirer of the film and every student of cinema.