Julie Dash

Julie Dash
Born	October 22, 1952 (1952-10-22) Long Island City, Queens, New York, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	AFI, UCLA
Occupation	Film director, producer, screenwriter
Years active	1973–present
Influenced by	Octavia Butler, Oscar Micheaux, Toni Morrison, Satyajit Ray, Philippa Schuyler, Andrei Tarkovsky

Julie Dash (born October 22, 1952 in Long Island City, Queens, New York) is a United States filmmaker. She directed Daughters of the Dust, which in 1991 became the first full-length film with general theatrical release in the United States by an African American woman. In 2004, Daughters of the Dust was included in the National Film Registry.

Biography

Julie Dash initially was rejected by Hollywood executives when she pitched her first full-length film, Daughters of the Dust. Dash stated in an interview with the Boston Globe that she was turned down in a very similar systematic fashion of excluding black women from Hollywood. She was told that her film was "too different." However, remaining confident in an interview with the Detroit Free Press, Dash states "I'm a very hopeful person and I think we can accomplish a lot through film in the '90s. We're going to see a lot of film work done by black women who have different concerns than our brothers who make films [...] We have strong statements to make because we've been silenced for so long."

"Daughters of the Dust" opened to critical acclaim. The Boston Globe called it "mesmerizing"; the Atlanta Constitution described it as "poetry in motion"; and the Village Voice said that it was "an unprecedented achievement." One woman who just finished watching a sold-out New York City premiere told New York Magazine, "It's hard to explain. It makes you feel connected to all those before you that you never knew, to parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. I'm a different person now from seeing this movie. It's a rejuvenation, a catharsis. Whatever color you are, people want to feel that sense of belonging."

The plot of "Daughters of the Dust" is centered around a family of Gullahs—blacks living on islands off the southeastern coast of the United States. "Daughters of the Dust" is also the first nationally distributed feature-length film directed by an African American woman.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Dash said that she knew very little about her South Sea Island heritage until she noticed her father's "funny accent." She soon recognized it to be Gullah, a West African-influenced English dialect preserved off the coast of Georgia, South Carolina, and northeastern Florida. As a child she was exposed to certain rituals practiced by her caretaker who would burn loose strands of Dash's hair after she combed it. She told the Village Voice that the reason for this was "so no one could get a hold of it." She also said how her caretaker would talk about "hiding [her] pictures so no one could put gopher dust on them and drive you crazy."

In 1974, Dash pursued to study film at the Leonard Davis Center for the Arts in the David Picker Film Institute and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree. While attending, Dash wrote a promotional documentary for the New York Urban Coalition called "Working Models of Success".

Dash moved to Los Angeles to attend the Center for Advanced Film Studies at the American Film Institute where she studied under filmmakers such as Jan Kadar, William Friedkin, and Slavko Vorkapich. She produced "Four Women", which was a dance film based on the Nina Simone song that won a Gold Medal for Women in Film in the 1978 Miami International Film Festival. This central theme for this film because the main focus of "Daughters of the Dust".

She stated in an interview with the Village Voice, "I stopped making documentaries after discovering Toni Morrison, Toni Cade Bambara, and Alice Walker. I wondered, why can't we see movies like this? I realized I needed to learn how to make narrative movies." Black women authors played a huge role in her decision to pursue creative film. In 1977 she directed Diary of an African Nun, which was an adaptation of a short story by Alice Walker at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dash worked as member of the Classifications and Ratings Administrations for the Motion Picture Association of America between 1978 and 1980. Dash was assigned to a special assignment screening at the Cannes International Film Festival where co-sponsored a screening of short films in the Marche du Cinema.

In 1983, Dash directed a short called "Illusions", which was part of an ongoing series. This short explored themes such as racial and sexual discrimination. "Illusions" was critically acclaimed, receiving the Black American Cinema Society Award in 1985, and was a recipient for the Black Filmmaker Foundation's Jury Prize.

Julie Dash was named a 2007 USA Rockefeller Foundation Fellow and awarded a $50,000 grant by United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the work of American artists.

A Detroit Free Press contributor stated, "In all of Dash's films, black women belie the Hollywood stereotypes. Dash's black woman is a complex bundle of hope and regret, joy and pain, tenderness and fury, vulnerability and strength." Dash's films became something worth watching to critics especially when it explored the depths of African American women depictions. Dash believes that Hollywood spits the same film images back at us over and over, and she wants to do something new. She proclaims in the Free Press, "We're bombarded with the same film images over and over."

She is an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Filmography

Director

• Making Angels (2013)
• Tupelo 77 (2012)
• Brothers of the Borderland (2004)
• The Rosa Parks Story (2002) (TV)
• Love Song (2000) (TV)
• Incognito (1999) (TV)
• Funny Valentines (1999) (TV)
• SUBWAYStories: Tales from the Underground (1997) (TV) (segment "Sax Cantor Riff")

... aka Subway (UK: DVD box title)

• "Women: Stories of Passion" (1 episode, 1997); Grip Till It Hurts (1997) TV Episode
• Tony! Toni! Tone! - "Thinking Of You" (1997) (music video)
• Adriana Evans - "Love Is All Around" (1997) (music video)
• Praise House (1991)
• Daughters of the Dust (1991)
• Illusions (1982)
• Diary of an African Nun (1977)
• Four Women (1975)
• Working Models of Success (1973)

Writer

• SUBWAYStories: Tales from the Underground (1997) (TV) (segment "Sax Cantor Riff")

... aka Subway (UK: DVD box title)

• "Women: Stories of Passion" (1 episode, 1997); Grip Till It Hurts (1997) TV Episode (teleplay)
• Daughters of the Dust (1991)
• Illusions (1982)

Literature

Julie Dash, bell hooks, Toni Cade Bambara, Daughters of the Dust: The Making of an African American Woman's Film, New Press 1992

See also

• L.A. Rebellion
• Women's Cinema

External links

• Bibliography of books and articles about Julie Dash via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center
• Sisters in Cinema
• Rockefeller Foundation Fellows 2007
• United States Artists arts advocacy organization.