Julie Dash’s ‘Daughters of the Dust’ to Be Shown at Tribeca Festival
The period drama about the descendants of West African slaves, Daughters of the Dust, will be screened at the Tribeca Festival on June 19 as well as the Museum of the Moving Image on June 25.
The Tribeca Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary of hosting live events and film screenings in New York City. After its cancellation last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival announced its return to in-person events back in March on Instagram. The 2021 festival is being held from June 9 to June 20 at the Tribeca Film Center.
The festival will be screening Daughters of the Dust on June 19. The Museum of the Moving Image will also be screening the 1991 drama on June 19 and June 25 as part of its “Celebrating Juneteenth” series and its “See It Big: The Return!” series that celebrates its post-pandemic return. Directed by Julie Dash, Daughters of the Dust follows the Gullah people in 1902, descendants of African slaves who fled the slave trade to live on coastal American islands. Members of the Peazant family plan a northward migration to the United States mainland, which gives them hope of a better life. The film is the first feature with a female African American director to have a general theatrical release.
Dash said in an interview, “So much of Daughters of the Dust besides was about camouflaging. Everything is camouflaged. The way the eat, the way we pray, the way we move, the way we signal one another. It’s all hidden in these non-verbal methods and means of communicating which were created to survive the period of enslavement.” Her goal with the film was “To depict the metaphor of the period of enslavement in a way it had never been seen before.” She said, “We have a lifetime of stories to tell.”
The film stars Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara O. Jones, Cheryl Lynn Bruce, and Tommy Hicks. It won the Cinematography Award at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival. For the film’s directing, Julie Dash won the Special Award at the 2016 New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
Fans on Twitter praised the film.
This has one of the best cinematography, can’t recommend it enough.
— እዮብ 🌹🐼 (@eyxob_) June 7, 2021
Daughters of the Dust (1991)
Dir. Julie Dash pic.twitter.com/AUxEWpc26T
On the slavery trope in films: The characters of Julie Dash’s ‘Daughters of the Dust’ inhabit a milieu de mémoire haunted by the traumas of their enslaved past that dissolve into an empowering montage of a vibrant imaginary of Africa” https://t.co/2gVpTfK09h @analuciaraujo_ pic.twitter.com/grC41aIy5k
— Cambria Press (@CambriaPress) June 4, 2021
watching daughters of the dust unlocked something for me. it should be for mandatory viewing at each family reunion
— yarrow shahidi (@lambarghini_) May 28, 2021
Get tickets for the Daughters of the Dust screening at the Tribeca Festival on June 19 at Astoria Park. You can also buy tickets for the Museum of the Moving Image’s screening on June 19 and June 25 at the Redstone Theater.
