Kaycee Moore as “Haagar Peazant” (far left), Alva Rogers as “Eula Peazant” (second from left), Cora Lee Day as “Nana Peazant” (second from right), and Cheryl Lynn Bruce as “Viola Peazant” (right) in Daughters of the Dust directed by Julie Dash.
Photo courtesy of Cohen Film Collection
Last week, I nervously sat down to interview a jet-lagged, but recovering Julie Dash the day after her arrival for the CinemAfrica 2017 film festival in Stockholm. As the interview progressed, I lost my nervosity and so much was said, that the editors at KRULL have decided to post it as a 3-part series.
Julie Dash first released her highly original and influential film “Daughters of the Dust” to wide critical and public acclaim in 1991. It became the first film by an African-American woman to get a general distribution deal. In 2004, “Daughters of the Dust” officially became a part of the U.S. permanent cultural canon when it was taken into the prestigious National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The film was re-released last year and again became one of the must-see films of the year.
The story of the film is set in 1902 and centers on one day in the life of four generations of women in the Peazant family who live on one of the Gullah Islands off the east coast of the US. It’s a story of a pivotal post-slavery moment, when each member of the family must decide whether they should stay on the island or join the Great Migration of African-Americans to the North. Dash provides us with graceful and intimate tableaux allowing us to simultaneously understand the historical event and the personal choices each family member has to make.
Julie Dash embodies the fighting spirit of black women. That spirit that keeps us doing our thing, holding on to our ambitions in the face of rejection, neglect and what is expected of us. She has collected accolades in an industry that is notoriously hard on women and black women in particular. She has survived the film industry for over 25 years and her seminal work “Daughters of the Dust” have come full circle and is relevant to a new generation of black women the world over, thanks to Beyonce’s Lemonade drawing heavily from the visual language of the film.
Julie Dash changed how we saw black women in film.
“It’s too late for me to become a nurse!”
BLACK FILMMAKERS & HOLLYWOOD
Do you think it’s a coincidence that the film is taking off now again in times like this, with the last election in the US, the upcoming ones in Europe, the afrophobic backlash after the tenure of Obama, and in relation to the rebirth of the right wing?
That’s an interesting question because I’ve never thought about it in the rebirth of the right wing as opposed to this kind of storytelling. But I think the whole rebirth of the right wing is a cautionary tale and you have to tell the stories the way you want to tell them. We must tell our stories no matter what. Because when you try to fit in, when you try to assimilate, it’s not necessarily a win-win situation. I think other cultures (speaking from the point of view of the US), like the Chinese-American, Irish-American, what have you, they can be very comfortable telling their stories the way they want to tell them, living their lives and sharing their culture. But African-Americans for a while were just trying to assimilate. The alt-right is a harsh reminder that you might as well be who you are because they don’t like you whether you’re trying to assimilate or not.
When your film came out there was a watershed moment when it was like “Wow! An African-American woman getting general distribution. Nowadays it seems that there is another kind of pressure and focus for young African-American filmmakers. What changes have you seen happen in terms of how African-Americans approach filmmaking between then and now?
Even though it doesn’t look like it – it seems like there’s a lot – there is still so few of us. You can count the number of African-American filmmakers on both hands. There’s Dee Rees, Ava DuVernay, Gina Prince-Bythewood for example. What remains constant is that you have to have a prior relationship with someone to get financing. You could be a visionary, you could be very talented, you could be all those things but if you don’t have someone quarter-backing for you, then it’s just as difficult as ever to get anything done.
How do you see the rising success of Ava DuVernay helping other (black) female filmmakers?
I think Ava was always very aware of the progression of a film movement, where you need to have people pulling other people up. She does that and she’s always done that. When she got the Queen Sugar television series deal, she made sure that each episode was directed by a woman. Black women, White women and Asian women. She’s the only person who’s ever done that. In six months’ time she’s done more to advance the notion of women filmmakers than Hollywood has done in a hundred years. And Oprah Winfrey helped her, pulled her up. Again, the only one who’s ever done that. Ava’s film distribution company Array is helping to distribute work by people of color and independent filmmakers. It’s a mindset that is new to Hollywood. Other producers, even producers of color have literally closed the doors on us.
That’s shocking to me!
And then they say, “Oh, we didn’t know, we never heard about you.”
When they say something like that, is it ageism?
No, because some of the same people that I pitched stories to 25 years ago, they claim no knowledge of it. It’s the same people that’s still there. Like, “Oh, ‘Daughters of the Dust,’ I don’t remember it when it came out” and I’m like “I sat in your office three times!”
What is this shocking lack of knowledge, of history?
It’s not lack of knowledge. It’s re-imagining. It’s their version of history.
Is there an alternative to Hollywood, or will you at some point have to go through that system?
There are alternatives. You could crowd fund to get financing for your film, as long as you keep the budget really low and within reason. There are organizations like the black fraternities and sororities. They could certainly finance films. If for example, they have each member contribute $50, it would be 5 million in revenue.
Wow, that is amazing power!
That is amazing power, but they don’t use it. And when they did try, an outside attorney came in and convinced them not to use their own money, but instead to take their idea to Hollywood. Then they got all pumped up, but Hollywood was not interested in making their film.
Film is a high-rent, venture capital kind of business and if you have too many voices coming in and looking over the script and wanting to set their own stamp on it, it just becomes…[big sigh!]
You’ve been going for 25 years, how do you survive in all of that? How do you still manage to find the strength to keep going?
Because it’s what I do! It’s too late for me to become a nurse! [laughs] I make films for museums. I shoot commercials. I used to make music videos, but that has not been working out lately. Now I’m facing ageism too, because people say “Why don’t you just teach”? And well, yeah, I’m already doing that!
It sounds like filmmaking is a very individualistic thing?
It depends on where you come at it from. Where I come from, it was not. The way Ava DuVernay comes at it, it is not, it’s very much a group effort. You have to be forward thinking. You have to understand that you will not always be at the top, and that you will not always be the one working. It’s a movement, a wave, and you want to be a part of the wave and you want to influence the wave. The Hollywood mindset is very individualistic – who’s on top of the heap. No one is on top of the heap all the time.
What are you working on now?
I have an episodic series I’ve written. I also have tons of screenplays I’ve written over the years in various stages of development, and it always comes down to finding financing, trying to attach talent to it. Celebrity actors don’t want to attach to something that may not go. They don’t want to have their brand tarnished. They don’t want to hitch their wagon to you if they’re not sure it’s going somewhere.
In Sweden you can catch “Daughters of the Dust” at Cinematekets Malmö våren 2017
