The film begins with the following title cards: “At the turn of the century, Sea Island Gullahs, descendents of African Captives, remained isolated from the mainland of South Carolina and Georgia. As a result of their isolation, the Gullah created and maintained a distinct, imaginative and original African American culture.” “Gullah communities recalled, remembered and recollected much of what their ancestors brought with them from Africa …”
       Voice-over narration by Eula and Eli’s “Unborn Child” is heard intermittently in the film, typically reflecting the child’s desire to see the Peazant family reconcile their differences.
       As noted in various contemporary reviews, including Manohla Dargis’s Apr 1992 assessment in Applause magazine, Daughters of the Dust is somewhat surreal and non-linear, shifting between the day in 1902 on the beach, memories of the past, and fantasy sequences featuring Eula and Eli’s child. Visual elements, including dramatically framed shots, “intricate dissolves,” the women’s white cotton and lace dresses, and men’s “secret” hand signs, all create meaning beyond the summarized narrative, which has been streamlined to convey the story of the Peazant family’s last day on the island.
       In her 1992 book, Daughters of the Dust: The Making of an African American Woman’s Film, writer-director Julie Dash described the hard work and perseverance that went into realizing her feature film debut. In 1975, while still a fellow at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, CA, she began making notes for a “short silent film” about an African American family from the Carolina Sea Islands. However, three other short films occupied her time until 1981, when she received a Guggenheim grant that allowed her to conduct extensive historical research on the subject of the African migration through the South Carolina Low Country. After realizing that there was too much material for a short film, she decided to turn the project into a feature. She combined her archival research with personal family stories, as well as “strange and funny” West African ritual traditions, and began writing the script in 1985.
       By 1986, Dash was ready to shoot the film, but lacked funding. She spent a year applying for grants. In the summer of 1987, using the little money she had been awarded, as well as “unused film stock from friends like [filmmaker] Charles Burnett,” she shot a “sample” picture on St. Helena Island, S.C. Journalist Greg Tate documented the two-week shoot in a 12 Apr 1988 Village Voice article, noting that two of the four actors involved—Alva Rogers as “Eula,” and Barbara-O as “Yellow Mary”—were committed to reprising their roles once funding was secured for the feature production. At the time, the role of “Nana Peazant” was named “Great Mother Palmer.” To more accurately represent what Dash had in mind for the full-length film, various crew members played additional roles.
       Although Dash’s “sample” film failed to generate interest from Hollywood or European studios, she convinced an executive from American Playhouse the picture was worth funding. Various contemporary sources, including a 6 Mar 1992 HR news item, cited a final budget of a little over $1 million. A 15 Nov 1989 Var production chart indicated that principal photography began 17 Oct 1989 in Beaufort, S.C. In her account of making the film, Dash clarified that the majority of the four-week shoot took place on the small islands near Beaufort, including St. Helena Island and Huntington Island. Environmental restrictions prevented the use of four-wheel drive vehicles, which meant that filmmakers could not bring a generator on location. Faced with this limitation, Dash's husband, director of photography A. Jaffa Fielder, relied on natural light during the production. Dash recalled the cast and crew’s willingness to shoot unscheduled scenes on “a moment’s notice,” as well as persevere against vicious mosquitoes and sandstorms: “For the most part … everyone appreciated that we were doing something different, something special. We worked as a community of artists, collaborating to create a work of art.”
       A 19 Jan 1990 I^HR news brief acknowledged that production had wrapped in Beaufort. With limited funds for post-production, Dash and her two editors worked throughout the year completing the film. In Dec 1990, they took a “fine cut” to Los Angeles so that composer John Barnes could finish the score. In a 4 Jun 1991 Village Voice interview, the director noted that, in keeping with the idea that the Sea Islanders would have believed in a West African cosmology, all musical cues were composed in “certain astrological keys.” The mixed 28 Jan 1991 Var review described Barnes’s score as “seductive and excessive by turns,” while the 21 Jan 1992 Village Voice stated that the music evoked “a vivid sense of natural surroundings.”
       On 24 Jan 1991, Daughters of the Dust screened at the Sundance Film Festival. The filmmakers later recalled, in Amy Taubin’s 26 Nov 1991 Village Voice column, that the print was “untimed,” meaning, without color correction. Director of photography A. Jaffa Fielder lamented, “It was embarrassing, the way it looked.” Regardless, he was awarded the Best Cinematography prize.
       Although Var commended the film for its visual beauty, statements describing Daughters of the Dust as “a wildly indulgent and undisciplined piece of filmmaking” in the spirit of “a two-hour Laura Ashley commercial,” did not bode well for Dash, who had yet to find a distributor. She continued to screen the film on the festival circuit, and on 25 Nov 1991, Var reported that Kino International had acquired the film and scheduled a 15 Jan 1992 release in New York City. The two-week run at Film Forum was so successful that Kino moved the picture to another New York theater where it could screen indefinitely. A 6 Mar 1992 LAT news brief indicated that the picture grossed $350,000 in the three weeks following its opening. Various contemporary sources crowned Daughters of the Dust as “the first feature-length film by a black woman to enjoy national commercial release.”
       Critical assessment was generally positive, particularly in regard to the film’s poetic and dreamlike imagery. However, some reviewers commented that the Geechee dialect was difficult to understand without subtitles. Dash predicted that the film would resonate with future audiences, stating: “I think people will look at it ten, twenty years from now and discover new things and new emotions in it.” On 27 Apr 2016, a NYT article cited Daughters of the Dust as a source of inspiration for pop singer Beyoncé , whose 2016 collection of music videos, Lemonade, contained marked visual allusions to Dash’s film. The NYT also reported that the Cohen Film Collection had completed a digital restoration of Daughters of the Dust, with plans to release the picture theatrically in fall 2016. Following an opening in New York City, a “national rollout” and new Blu-ray release were anticipated.
       End credits include the following literary credits: “Thunder, Perfect Mind” from The Nag Hammadi Library in English © 1977, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. [and] “Ibo Landing” Passage by Paule Marshal, from Praisesong For The Widow.
       End credits include the following acknowledgments: “The producers wish to thank: The South Carolina Film Office; Citizens & Southern National Bank, Beaufort, S.C.; The Royal Frogmore Inn, St. Helena Island, S.C.; Allstar Travel, Inc., Atlanta, GA; Byilye Y. Avery, Founding President, The National Black Women’s Health Project; Women Make Movies, Inc., New York; Emory Campbell, Director, Penn Cultural Center, St. Helena Island, S.C.; Saundra Sharp; Stephen D. Barnes; Pat Phillips; Cheryl Chislom; Heather Foxworth; Larry Moten; Arthur & Rowena Fielder; Michael Bassett; Rhudine Dash; Worth W. Long; Debra Zimmerman; Ada Griffith; Greg Tate.”
       End credits also include the following acknowledgment: “Partial funding provided by: The John Simon Memorial Foundation Fellowship; The Georgia Humanities; Appalshop, Southeast Regional Fellowship; The Fulton County Arts Council; The Rockefeller Foundation; [and] The National Black Programming Consortium.” End credits conclude with the statement: “Produced in association with American Playhouse® with funds from the Public Broadcasting Service, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies.”