Capital Celluloid 2015 - Day 114: Fri Apr 24

Daughters of the Dust (Dash, 1991): Tate Modern, 7pm


This is part of the LA Rebellion: Creating a Black Cinema season at the Tate. Full details of the films, which are on till April 25, can be found here.

Here is the Tate introduction:
Daughters of the Dust is a landmark in independent film. An enchanting visual poem, it is an impressionistic history of the Gullah people, who at the turn of the century find themselves torn between their traditions and modernity. Descendants of slaves who lived in isolation on the tropical Sea Islands off the Southern U.S. coast, the Gullah people maintained strong connections to African cultural and linguistic traditions. Focusing on the extended Peazant family in summer of 1902, the film explores the spiritual conflicts between different generations of women as they debate the consequences of their relocation to the mainland. 

Chicago Reader review:
Julie Dash's first feature (1991), set in the islands along the south Atlantic coast of the U.S. sometime around 1900. A group of black women, carrying on ancient African traditions and beliefs as part of an extended family preparing to migrate north, confront the issue of what to bring with them and what to leave behind. Lyrically distended in its folkloric meditations, with striking use of slow and slurred motion in certain interludes, this doesn't make much use of drama or narrative, and the musical score and performances occasionally seem at war with the period ambience. But the resources of the beautiful locations are exploited to the utmost, and Dash can be credited with an original, daring, and sincere conception. With Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Adisa Anderson, Kaycee Moore, and Barbara-O.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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