Daughters of the Dust (1991)
81%RT Audience Score: 66%
Awards & Nominations: 4 wins & 2 nominations
Daughters of the Dust addresses its weighty themes with lovely visuals and a light, poetic touch, offering an original, absorbing look at a largely unexplored corner of American culture
Daughters of the Dust is like a beautiful dream that you don’t want to wake up from. Julie Dash’s film is a visual and aural masterpiece that transports you to another time and place. It’s like looking through a family album, but instead of still photos, the images come to life and the colors swirl around you. The story may be simple, but the emotions it evokes are complex and powerful. It’s a film that will stay with you long after the credits roll.
Production Company(ies)
DENTSU Music And Entertainment, Nibariki Nippon Television, Network
Distributor
Kino International
Release Type
Theatrical, Theatrical (Limited)
Filming Location(s)
St. Helena Island, South Carolina, USA
MPAA / Certificate
TV-PG
Year of Release
1991
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Color:Color
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Sound mix:Ultra Stereo
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Aspect ratio:1.85 : 1
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Runtime:1h 54m
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Language(s):English, French
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Country of origin:United States
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Dec 27, 1991 Original
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 15, 2000
Genre(s)
Drama
Keyword(s)
Daughters of the Dust, drama, Gullah community, South Carolina, West African slaves, Yoruba traditions, generational split, family, matriarch, tradition, prostitute, female lover, sister, director Julie Dash, producer Julie Dash, writer Julie Dash, starring Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Adisa Anderson, Kaycee Moore, Barbara O., Eartha Robinson, box office gross $41.0K, Kino International, Ultra-Stereo, MPAA rating N/A, reviewed by Judy Gerstel, Patricia Smith, Eleanor Ringel Cater, Carrie Rickey, Stephen Amidon, Derek Malcolm, Matt Brunson, Moira Sullivan, Steve Murray, Noel Taylor, Jack Garner, audience score 65%, 78 critic reviews, 33 top critics, fresh rating 73%, rotten rating 5%, slavery, African folk-ways, Gullah culture, Islam, Christianity, pagan customs, magic, education, beach tones, dreamy sequences
Worldwide gross: $1,689,723
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $3,729,880
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,259
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 406,748
US/Canada gross: $1,683,422
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): $3,715,971
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,889
US/Canada opening weekend: $10,842
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): $23,933
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,448
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
Alva Rogers – Eula Peazant
Adisa Anderson – Eli Peazant
Kaycee Moore – Haagar Peazant
Barbara O. – Yellow Mary
Eartha Robinson – Myown Peazant
Julie Dash – Director, Producer, Writer
Director(s)
Julie Dash
Writer(s)
Julie Dash
Producer(s)
Julie Dash
Film Festivals
Awards & Nominations
4 wins & 2 nominations
Academy Awards
All Critics (78) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (73) | Rotten (5)
Writer-producer-director Julie Dash has taken extraordinary risks. The movie develops and grows and swells into something remarkable and alive, like an idea or a feeling or a child in the womb.
March 23, 2021 | Rating: 4/4
Judy Gerstel
Detroit Free Press
TOP CRITIC
Let’s thank Julie Dash for her persistence in bringing us this jewel. This is a story we will tell our children again and again — and with each retelling, the colors will swell in our souls.
March 23, 2021
Patricia Smith
Boston Globe
TOP CRITIC
An Atlanta-based artist making her long-worked-for feature debut, Ms. Dash is a filmmaker of startling originality and delicacy. Her film is poetry in motion, part dream-memory, part tattered family album.
March 23, 2021
Eleanor Ringel Cater
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TOP CRITIC
The film rewards the patient viewer who succumbs to its trancelike spell and understands that the movie is about the rhythms and rituals of a culture remembered.
March 23, 2021 | Rating: 3/4
Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer
TOP CRITIC
[Dash’s] refusal to spend much time establishing characters or expiating their conflicts makes this more like a stroll through a exhibition of sepia photographs than a full blooded drama.
March 23, 2021
Stephen Amidon
Financial Times
TOP CRITIC
It’s a true original and, as such, of considerable value both as a film and as a sad yet hopeful summation of history as memory and experience.
March 23, 2021
Derek Malcolm
Guardian
TOP CRITIC
Decades later, the film has lost none of its importance or appeal.
April 10, 2022 | Rating: 3.5/4
Matt Brunson
Film Frenzy
…the film is created with many voices that weave and join with the other passages of history…
October 5, 2021
Moira Sullivan
AWFJ Women on Film
The visual beauty of Daughters is evident throughout, while the difficult narrative sneaks up on you.
March 23, 2021
Steve Murray
Bay Area Reporter
Dash’s film is as much a visual experience as an aural one. She is a film-maker whose passion for her subject permeates very frame.
March 23, 2021 | Rating: 4/4
Noel Taylor
Ottawa Citizen
Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust offers so much to admire, it’s too bad its occasional lack of clarity and meandering style weaken its impact.
March 23, 2021 | Rating: 2.5/4
Jack Garner
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
If Daughters of the Dust is deceptively simple in its story and characterizations it is an overwhelmingly rich sensory experience.
March 23, 2021 | Rating: 4/4
Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star…
Plot
In the Gullah community of coastal South Carolina, a generational split occurs as a young woman wants to move away from tradition-bound matriarch Nana, while former prostitute Yellow Mary returns to the island with her female lover and faces rejection from her sister.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
The cast of Daughters of the Dust includes Kaycee Moore, Cora Lee Day, Barbara-O, and Cheryl Lynn Bruce.
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