Daughters of the Dust | Film Screening at The Cinematheque

This program is presented in partnership with The Cinematheque and will take place at 200–1131 Howe Street.

“Dash’s visionary visual marriage between Afrocentric aesthetics and the rich emotional depth of Black womanhood is a cinematic triumph … [It] remains an enduring symphony that sings, reframes, and reignites a Black girl’s song.”  —Maya S. Cade, Sight and Sound  

The fact that Julie Dash’s debut feature now ranks alongside La dolce vita in Sight and Sound​’s best-of-all-time poll demonstrates just how iconic, how culturally unignorable, her landmark independent film has justifiably become. The first full-length picture by an African American woman to receive theatrical distribution in the United States—a milestone as impressive as it was appallingly overdue—Daughters of the Dust tells a dreamy, dawn-of-the-20th-century tale of a matriarchal Gullah family, long rooted in South Carolina’s Afrocentric Sea Islands, as it prepares to migrate north to the mainland. Dash unfurls the work as a reverie on Black diaspora, narrated by an unborn child and carried by lush, evocative images shaped more by interiority than story. Arthur Jafa, co-producer and cinematographer, took top prize at Sundance for his virtuosic camerawork. The film’s legacy was sealed when Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade drew much of its visuality from Dash’s groundbreaking achievement. 

Daughters of the Dust will be introduced by Stephanie Bokenfohr, Adult Public Programs Coordinator and Kika Memeh, Public Programs Assistant at the Vancouver Art Gallery. 

This film screening is presented in dialogue with the exhibition Conceptions of White, which features The White Album by Arthur Jafa. The artwork and exhibition offers context and nuanced perspectives on contemporary configurations of White identity. Conceptions of White examines the origins and present reality of “Whiteness” as a concept and as a racial invention that classifies degrees of civility/humanity.

“Julie Dash’s boldly imaginative, ecstatically visionary drama is one of the best of all American independent films … The intimate action shimmers with mysteries and myths.” —Richard Brody, The New Yorker 

“A film of spellbinding visual beauty.” —Stephen Holden, The New York Times 

DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST
USA 1991
JULIE DASH
112 min. DCP
PG
In Gullah and English with English subtitles