The African American Female Auteur

Post # 5 - Ricky

(Photo courtesy of The Internet Movie Database)

The female film director that I chose to write about is Julie Dash. I find her interesting, not just because she is a fellow Queens resident like myself, but she is a successful female director who happens to be of African American descent. In a business that is dominated by white males, and only accounts for 6% of female directors, you can only begin to imagine the struggles that she faced and still faces today with her work. In the beginning of her career, different Hollywood executives from numerous entertainment companies rejected her pitch for her first full length 1991 film Daughters of the Dust. She was given the excuse that her film was "too different." She felt as if they did not give her a fair chance because she was a Black woman and had no real opportunities to display her work unlike her male counterparts.

(Photo Courtesy of Indy Week)

She eventually overcame the odds and became the first African American woman to have a full-length theatrical release in the United States by sending Daughters of the Dust to independent film festivals instead since Hollywood rejected her idea. Dash is an auteur of film because she created a collection of great independent and high grossing films and received 1 win and 5 nominations for numerous awards including the Sundance Film Festival, Directors Guild of America, Black Reel Awards and lastly American Film Institute. However, most of these awards are independent; she has yet to receive any nomination for an Academy award or any other Hollywood recognized award for film. In 2004 Daughters of The Dust placed in The National Film Registry by The Library of Congress. This is an extremely notable honor because it joins only 400 American films preserved as a National Treasures. On the “Women Make Movies” website, they state that “O Magazine included Daughters among it’s 50 Greatest Chick Flicks, and in 1999, the twenty-fifth Annual Newark Black Film Festival honored Julie and her film Daughters of the Dust as being one of the most important cinematic achievements in Black Cinema in the 20th century.” Daughters of the Dusk was widely successful because it tells the story of three generations of Gullah women at the turn of the 20th century and focuses on the family's migration from the Sea Islands which is the low country region of South Carolina and Georgia, to the American mainland. It featured an interesting and unique narrative, since the film is told by an unborn child. The movie received critical praise, for both its rich language and use of song, and for its use of imagery. To be recognized by Oprah and many other film societies as one of the most influential film makers is such an amazing accomplishment. It is just sad that I never heard of her until I wrote this paper. When we think of African American film makers who are successful, the first people that come to mind are Spike Lee and Tyler Perry, unfortunately no African American women.

According to Indy Week’s website, Dash states “I was the only one who came off of that stage (at the Sundance Film Festival in 1991) not having another motion-picture movie," remembers Dash, on the phone from Los Angeles. Twenty years after her movie hit Sundance (and went on to have a theatrical run—a first for a female African-American filmmaker—where it grossed more than a million dollars), Dash still hasn't done a big-screen follow-up. "I have done cable movies. But since then, coming off the Sundance stage, I have never gotten a motion-picture deal.” They later go on to say “Dash says Dust (which would later be selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2004) gave her a rep as an auteur who specializes in "the cinema of ideas, not words," making the chances of her doing a sophomore feature close to nil." Dash created made for TV movies such as The Rosa Parks Story, which in 2003 DGA Nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, Movies for Television. So pretty much after her huge independent hit, she was left doing Cable TV movies and never really got another break. Dash even goes on to describe how her male Black counterparts are further oppressing them, “Not to mention that male black filmmakers have been stealing their thunder as of late. Filmmakers like that unstoppable force of nature Tyler Perry and Precious director Lee Daniels have been making films African-American audiences (specifically, African-American women) flock to, making those directors the go-to guys in Hollywood—not female, black filmmakers—for capturing the lives of black women on screen.” Today Dash travels all across the country and having lectures at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, as well as speaking in numerous countries and continents describing her film making experience, success and hardships to students.

(Photos Courtesy of Barnes & Noble)

Works Cited

"WOMEN MAKE MOVIES | Julie Dash." WOMEN MAKE MOVIES | HOME. Web. 18 Nov. 2011. .

Lindsey, Craig D. "Julie Dash and the Ongoing Struggle of Black Women Filmmakers | Film Beat." Independent Weekly. Craig D. Lindsey, 7 Sept. 2011. Web. 18 Nov. 2011. .

"Julie Dash - Biography." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 18 Nov. 2011. .