Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

QUOTE FOR 30 AUGUST 2003

“Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea. All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind.”

Kansas (1977)
Point of Know Return Album

Julie Dash directed this powerful, gorgeous film set in the legendary South sea islands off the Georgia coast at the turn of the century. Daughters of the Dust follows a Gullah family on the eve of its migration to the North. Led by a group of African American women, who are carriers of ancient African traditions and beliefs, the extended family readies itself to leave behind friends, loved ones and an entire insulated way of life. It’s a haunting film as the family faces their “point of no return.”

The film screened at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival. It won the Cinematography Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. The British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound Magazine chose the soundtrack as one of the best in the past 25 years. Made on a miniscule budget, IMDB_Pro puts the gross to date at $1,642,436.

The Gullah, or Geechee as they are known in Georgia, live in small farming and fishing communities on the sea islands of Georgia and South Carolina. Because of their geographic isolation, the Gullah/Geechee have been able to retain more of their African heritage than any other African Americans. Their ancestors’ ability cultivate rice and their high resistance to malaria due to the sickle trait, a heritable hemoglobin characteristic, are common links to Africans from the “Windward” or “Rice Coast” of West Africa, particularly to the country of Sierra Leone. Geechee Girls Multimedia is Julie Dash’s production company.