Daughters of the Dust (1991) on Netflix
In 1902, the Peazant family gathers on a Sea Island off South Carolina. Nana Peazant urges her relatives to honor their ancestors as the family weighs leaving for the mainland.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb6.7/103,917 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
On a Sea Island in 1902, the Peazant family comes together for a final dinner. Most of them intend to move to the mainland and a modern life, while the matriarch, Nana Peazant, holds to the African rituals and the memory of the ancestors. Viola, a devout Christian, and her cousin Yellow Mary, who arrives from the city with Trula, come to the island by boat. Mr. Snead, a photographer from the mainland, takes the islanders' portraits before they go. Eula is expecting a child, and her husband Eli is troubled over whether the baby is his. Haagar is eager to leave, while her daughter Iona loves St. Julien Lastchild, a Cherokee living on the island. The unborn child Eula carries narrates the story.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Daughters of the Dust (1991)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- While shooting on Hunting Island, South Carolina, the crew of Daughters of the Dust was evacuated to Charleston to avoid Hurricane Hugo, which then changed track and scored a direct hit on Charleston, causing historic damage.
- Released by Kino International, Daughters of the Dust became the first feature film made by an African-American woman to be distributed theatrically in the United States.
- Beyoncé's 2016 visual album Lemonade made several visual references to Daughters of the Dust, echoing its images of women in long white dresses on a beach or a rustic island porch; the homage brought the film attention in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, NPR and Essence.
- Rejected by Hollywood executives who found her first feature "too different", Julie Dash persisted and got $800,000 financing from the PBS series American Playhouse in 1988.
- Despite the film's acclaim, Julie Dash was unable to make another feature-length film in mainstream Hollywood; in 2007 she said Hollywood and mainstream television were still not open to what she had to offer.
- The sets of Daughters of the Dust, including the cabins, the graveyard and a figurative-sculpture dock at Igbo Landing, were built mostly from materials the Gullah would have had available at the time of the story.
