Julie Dash is an American film director, writer, and producer. The Julie Dash papers are part of the L.A. Rebellion Collection 2429.
Julie Dash was born in New York City on October 22nd, 1952. While in high school, she attended an after-school program at The Studio Museum of Harlem and joined their cinematography workshop. Watching foreign films at The Studio Museum of Harlem was like "time travel," said Dash, and they "caused a shift in [my] reality" (L.A. Rebellion: Julie Dash oral history interview). She was able to shoot 16mm film at the cinematography workshop but it wasn’t until she went to UCLA that she completed her first film.
She attended the City College of New York as an undergraduate to study psychology. But when they opened a film program called The Leonard Davis Center for the Performing Arts at City College: David Picker Film Institute, she joined immediately. At CCNY, Dash primarily shot experimental films. Some of the earliest L.A. Rebellion filmmakers coming out of Los Angeles—including Larry Clark and Charles Burnett—inspired her to create narrative films. As soon as she graduated from CCNY, she moved to Los Angeles with the intention of joining the L.A. Rebellion filmmakers at UCLA.
Dash did not have all of her paperwork in order, which delayed her admittance into UCLA. In 1974, she applied to and was accepted at the American Film Institute (AFI) and stayed for the duration of the two-year program. In AFI’s sound department, she worked on Larry Clark's UCLA MFA thesis film Passing Through (1977). In the AFI program writing classes, she wrote what would later become Four Women (1975), Diary of an African Nun (1977), and Illusions (1982).
After graduating from the AFI program, Dash joined the department of Theater, Film, and Television (TFT) at UCLA to complete her MFA. For Dash, being at UCLA was "like being in heaven" (L.A. Rebellion: Julie Dash oral history interview)—surrounded by and collaborating with her fellow L.A. Rebellion filmmakers, having access to high-end equipment, and having the freedom to create whatever type of films she wanted to create.
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Dash’s first film at UCLA was Four Women (1975), which is based on the Nina Simone song of the same name. It is an experimental film that shows professional dancer Linda Martina Young dancing to Simone’s “Four Women.” In her interview with UCLA oral historians, Dash describes how she met Young. They met when they were both recovering from knee surgery because they shared a hospital room!
Dash ran into significant technical issues while producing actual prints of Four Women (1975). The film contained so many quick cuts, in many cases every three or four frames, that labs in Los Angeles were too afraid to develop the film for fear that the filmstrip would break inside the machinery. The laboratory ultimately made an internegative on reversal film stock to create copies of the film. However, the internegative was so grainy and low-quality that to this day, Dash remains disappointed with how the film looks onscreen. Her work was so experimental and different from what was being produced at the time that she was actually ahead of the science that was available for developing her film. (This is no longer an issue because technology now allows directors to cut single frames, one at a time.)
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Julie Dash’s next film at UCLA was Diary of an African Nun (1977), her first to receive international acclaim and recognition. The film is based on a short story, also titled Diary of an African Nun, by Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Color Purple Alice Walker. Dash spent a whopping $900 (approximately $4,400 in 2022 when adjusted for inflation) on this student film, with $135 (approximately $660 in 2022 when adjusted for inflation) going towards a one-week rental of a nun’s habit. She used a friend’s bedroom for the interior shots and filmed the exterior shots at what is now the Westfield Culver City shopping mall. At the time, Dash said it had “beautiful rolling hills and this little single sad looking tree” (L.A. Rebellion: Julie Dash oral history interview). Although Dash had never been to Africa (the film was set in Uganda), she decided that this area in Culver City was the best location for her film. She would later receive praise from the Super 8 Filmmaker newsletter stating that “the landscape, props, and décor were convincingly African" (L.A. Rebellion Collection 2429, box 14, folder 5).
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Diary of an African Nun (1977) premiered at the 1977 Los Angeles International Film Exposition, also known as FILMEX. It was screened as part of a special event called “Super-8: It’s Bigger Than You Think” which featured twenty films created with Super 8mm film. Peter Stamelman, of The Super 8 Filmmaker newsletter, reviewed this event and stated that Dash’s student film was “stunning” and that the film was “the work of an intelligent, confident young filmmaker" (L.A. Rebellion Collection 2429, box 14, folder 5).
Among the many exciting things in this collection are the original letters that were sent to Julie Dash by Alice Walker following the creation of Diary of an African Nun (1977). While Alice Walker struggled with the sound quality of the film, she “enjoyed the visuals of the film immensely,” and described it as “beautifully done” (L.A. Rebellion Collection 2429, box 17, folder 12). Dash says that she struggled with the sound mixing on the film partly because, as a student, she juggled roles as writer, camera operator, director, editor, and sound mixer all at the same time without much help.
5/7/80
Dear Julie Dash,
I enjoyed the visuals of the film immensely. It is beautifully done.
However I would urge you to do the sound over. It is of poor quality–I think I was the only one who knew what was being said. And then many words were pronounced wrong–and at least one word was totally changed so that the impression given is the very opposite of my meaning. The word “imaginative” instead of “imitation” near the end. It is because Africans are imitative that they are this very week flocking to see the Pope in Zaire. If they were more imaginative they’d trample him instead of each other. Etc. Etc.
Then there is the mispronouncement of “livery.” The nun understands on some level that she is dressed as a slave of Christ, as well as a wife. In fact, the two are one, for her.
And so on.
It is such a lovely film and the actress is so compelling that I think a different reader would be a worthwhile addition. The story should enhance what is seen, not add confusion.
Be well. It was a fun experience for me.
Peace,
Alice Walker
P.S. I await my copy
June 16, 1980
Dear Julie,
Of course I am, I suppose, a perfectionist. An absurd thing to be, given existence. Howsoever, I spoke to Clyde Taylor and Marti Wilson who had seen the film before + they agreed they were unable to hear the words of the actors clearly enough for the story to make sense. Of course since many of the words are incorrect anyway, it would not make sense even if they could hear it.
But I do not worry about these things. If people want the real story, let them read it, I say.
Have you seen Midnight Birds? Some of those stories might be of interest to you, for your next film (or the one about black women). It is edited by Mary Helen Washington + just published by DoubleDay.
I am very happy to hear that you’ve been to France! That you are full of work + plans. And that someday we’ll meet!
Be well,
Alice Walker
Following Diary of an African Nun (1977), Dash moved on to what would be her most successful student film as well as her MFA thesis film, Illusions (1982). Illusions tells the story of Mignon Dupree, a light-skinned Black woman who passes as white in order to work as a studio executive in a Hollywood film studio in the 1940s. At the studio, a white actor’s singing is out of sync, so the studio calls in Esther Jeeter, a Black singer, to record a replacement track to dub over the white actor’s voice. Esther immediately recognizes that Mignon is Black, even though she is perceived as white by her white coworkers. The film explores the illusions created by this fraught premise.
Dash had first proposed Illusions when she was a student at the AFI. It was rejected because the instructors could not understanding how a sound sync issue could occur in post-production. They also didn’t understanding how a Black woman could pass as white while still being immediately recognizable as Black by other Black people (L.A. Rebellion: Julie Dash oral history interview).
Dash received grant money as well as donations from friends and colleagues to produce Illusions, and the film had a $10,000 budget (approximately $27,500 in 2022 when adjusted for inflation). Unlike the AFI, her advisors at UCLA were supportive of her work on Illusions, even when they didn’t understand it. Dash realized while making Illusions “that men have a whole different take on things and they are not shy about telling you” (L.A. Rebellion: Julie Dash oral history interview). Differences between how men and women perceive Dash’s stories would continue long after her 1985 graduation from UCLA. Nonetheless, Illusions would go on to be awarded the best Black film of the 1980s by The Black Filmmaker Institute, and was added to the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2020.
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Immediately following her graduation from UCLA, Dash began working on what would be her largest project yet. She had been conceptualizing what would later become Daughters of the Dust (1991) since her earliest years at UCLA. After graduating, she began working on it in earnest. Her success with Illusions, coupled with her ability to make excellent work on a tight budget, led to her being courted by film studios. However, once the (often white male) studio executives got Dash in the room, they were uninterested in the stories she wanted to tell (L.A. Rebellion: Julie Dash oral history interview). The collection contains many rejection letters that were sent to Dash by various studios, telling her that they would not pick up Daughters of the Dust for production.
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Lack of studio interest in Daughters of the Dust (1991) propelled Dash to make the film on her own, without major studio backing. Dash saw the film as a tribute to the L.A. Rebellion, hiring a team of actors and crew who had previously worked on L.A. Rebellion films and other Black independent films.
Daughters of the Dust is the story of a large Black family living on an island off the coast of South Carolina who decide to move North in the early 1900s. It depicts all the conflict, struggle, and joy that this difficult decision brings to the family.
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Without studio backing, it took Dash several years to complete Daughters of the Dust (1991). The film finally premiered at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival. Although it was awarded Best Cinematography, critics’ reviews were initially mixed. Daughters of the Dust differed from every other African-American film made up to that point. Due to its mysticism, rural setting, and abundance of strong female characters, critics didn’t know what to think. Most mainstream Black American films at the time centered around male leads, included significant tragedy, and focused on modern, urban settings.
“Word had come through that it wasn’t a real authentic African-American film. And I’m like, ‘Yay! I did it!’ because I realized at that point, that I had made a foreign film. And it was like ‘Yay!’ I loved that. It’s so, I guess deep within the culture that that was the word they were saying—they said it was inaccessible” (Julie Dash, in a 2011 oral history interview).
Although critics said the film was inaccessible, audiences resoundingly disagreed. Daughters of the Dust became the first ever film directed by an African-American woman to receive wide theatrical release in the United States. This brought the film outside of critic-heavy festival audiences and into the mainstream, where people from all backgrounds had the opportunity to visit their local theater to see it.
Part of the collection contains letters sent to Dash in support of her work. “I have seen “Daughters of the Dust” three times. In one instance, I saw it with my mother and my sister—who has now seen it ten times. The three of us were so moved we could speak of nothing else for hours, for days” (excerpt from a letter that was sent to and saved by Dash from Kyrn B. Richardson).
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Another letter from Aishah Simmons reads: “Thank you for creating images of African-American women that are real. The sistahs you depict in your films are women that I know…Your work has not only inspired me, but it has given me the courage to become a film/videomaker. You are definitely one of my heroines.”
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Undeniably, Julie Dash and Daughters of the Dust have had a significant impact on the lives of many Black Americans who had not previously seen their stories told on the big screen.
A significant portion of the Julie Dash papers (a series within the L.A. Rebellion collection) is comprised of the press coverage for Daughters of the Dust. Much of this coverage celebrates the film. In some cases, the press addresses the film industry’s racist and sexist practices towards Black women. In an edition of the Star Tribune in June 1993, author Rosalind Bentley writes: “While the [film] industry supports the making of violent black-male-coming-of-age movies such as Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society, it often thumbs its nose at projects pitched by and about black women." The article also contains an interview with Anne Marie Gillen, who at the time was the president of corporate creative development for Electric Shadow Productions. In her interview, Gillen says: “Any woman theme is difficult. Then you add color or ethnicity, then it’s even more difficult to sell. If you have a difficult-themed movie, it’s most likely to be done by someone with clout like Steven Spielberg with The Color Purple.”
Another article about Daughters of the Dust was in the Daily Journal in March 1992 and was written by Sid Scott. Scott claims that Daughters of the Dust is Arthur Jafa’s film. Arthur Jafa was the film’s cinematographer. Julie Dash was the writer and director. If it is any one person’s film, it is obviously Dash’s film. Dash does not have a voice in this article about her own film.
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In an article published by the Northwest Ethnic News in March 1993, Dash addresses complaints by white critics. White critics disliked the dialects in the movie, and they also disliked that certain spiritual practices in the film were not explained for white audiences who likely had never seen them before. Dash said, “This film does not place [white critics] in a privileged position…it’s a very arrogant attitude, this assumption that [I, a white critic, am] supposed to know everything about what you people are doing!’”
In article after article, it is disappointing to read Dash having to defend herself against criticism from the film industry for daring to deviate from filmmaking norms when they should have been celebrating her work. However, the articles provide deep insight into the narrow-mindedness of the film industry in the early 1990s (and it is disheartening that it doesn’t seem much different today, thirty years later). On a positive note, Daughters of the Dust was added to the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2004.
Following Daughters of the Dust, Dash spent much of her time making television movies, including Incognito (1999) and The Rosa Parks Story (2002). She has talked about her desire to create science fiction films, but after Daughters of the Dust, she says she has been “pigeon-holed” as an “earth mother, spiritual, magical realism chick” (L.A. Rebellion: Julie Dash oral history interview). Most recently, Dash has directed episodes of television shows, including episodes of Our Kind of People (2021), Women of the Movement (2022), and Reasonable Doubt (2022). We cannot wait to see what she does next!
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The Julie Dash papers are part of the L.A. Rebellion Collection 2429. To view the Julie Dash papers and to learn more, please visit UCLA Library Special Collections.
See also the UCLA Research Guide about the L.A. Rebellion, a guide to UCLA Library resources related to the L.A. Rebellion film movement, including books, articles, moving images, and more.
To learn more about how to view Julie Dash's films or to view her oral history interview, contact the UCLA Film and Television Archive's Research and Study Center. Daughters of the Dust (1991) and Illusions (1982) are also freely available for streaming on Kanopy through the UCLA Library's subscription.
Credits:
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