After interviewing the legendary Julie Dash for the Directors Guild of America’s Visual History Program, I had the absolute honor of snagging a short Substack chat with one of my cinematic heroes.
In exploring her extraordinary life and work, we went everywhere in our talk: from her girlhood days in Queensbridge and afterschool programs at the Studio Museum of Harlem (where she accidentally stumbled into cinematography), to being the only Black woman in her City College film classes, to her adventures at AFI and UCLA, where she worked and interacted alongside icons like Charles Burnett, Arthur Jafa, Kerry James Marshall and Alice Walker.
Of course, we talked about her luminous masterpiece Daughters of the Dust, both the film itself and the long, rich career before and after its debut. Queen Julie also dropped knowledge on the joy of community-driven success and offered beautiful advice about valuing audience connection over Hollywood validation.
And this heroine of cinema is still going! In the last year or so, she directed multiple episodes of the current hit Reasonable Doubt and recently created a museum exhibition for MOCA in Los Angeles. Whew! Two and a half hours wasn’t enough, but every minute was a gift. Thank you,
!
And thanks to all the good folks who hopped on my live for this fantastic last-minute convo, including
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