Daughters of the Dust

1991

112 mins

Directed by Julie Dash
94%
66%
Drama
Award Winner

Period drama set among the Gullah island community in the early 1900s, where ancient African traditions were still very much... More

Period drama set among the Gullah island community in the early 1900s, where ancient African traditions were still very much alive. Winner of the Cinematography Award at Sundance.

A family in the Gullah community of coastal South Carolina - former West African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors' Yoruba traditions - suffers a generational split. Young Haagar (Kaycee Moore) wants to move to the mainland away from tradition-bound matriarch Nana (Cora Lee Day). Former prostitute Yellow Mary (Barbara-O) gets a cold shoulder when she returns to the island with her female lover, especially from her sister Viola (Cheryl Lynn Bruce).

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Where to watch Daughters of the Dust

Daughters of the Dust is available to stream in the... More United Kingdom now on Amazon Video and Apple TV Store and BFI Player.

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Daughters of the Dust | Ratings & Reviews

94_%83 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes® rating
66_%1,300 reviews
Audience score rating

"It's lushly photographed and costumed, plus dreamily confusing, yet it vividly brings a past to life."

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Total Film

"Steeped in symbolism, superstition and myth, this disconcertingly original film is structured in tableaux which jump through time."

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Time Out

"This elegiac, dreamlike drama set on the Sea Islands off South Carolina in 1902 has an iron core of painful history."

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The Times

"It is a mysterious, fabular and sometimes dreamlike film with its own theatrical poise."

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The Guardian

"At certain moments we are not sure exactly what is being said or signified, but by the end we understand everything that happened - not in an intellectual way, but in an emotional way."

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Roger Ebert

"Daughters of the Dust is a film with a lot on its mind, but one that wears its agendas with lyrical lightness."

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Los Angeles Times

"The film offers a poetic political vision of a society falling between the stools of progression and regression, asking whether standing off against the travesties of the antebellum American South is the only way to attain true freedom."

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