Director Julie Dash conjures a spiritual epic, shot like theatre-in-the-round on the island’s beach and overflowing with conversations that merge towards a dreamy atmosphere; all held together by the voice of an unborn child (Kai-Lynn Warren) and the community matriarch, Nana Peazant (Cora Lee Day).
We follow Eli (Nana’s grandson played by Adisa Andertson) and his wife, Eula (Ava Rogers) as they embark on a journey to leave the island.
The first feature directed by an African-American woman to be theatrically distributed and boasting striking imagery that came to influence Beyoncé’s Lemonade videos, Daughters of the Dust is a powerfully fluid portrait of identity as communal, memory as living, and the resilience of Black women, enduring.