Blu-ray, DVD Release: Daughters of the Dust

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 11, 2017
Price: DVD $14.99, Blu-ray $17.99
Studio: Cohen Media

Julie Dash’s 1991 period drama Daughters of the Dust, the first-ever wide theatrical release by a African-American female filmmaker, tells the tale of the Gullah people living on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina in the early 1900s.

The film focuses on the members of the multi-generational Peazant family in the Sea Islands’ Gullah community — former West African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors’ Yoruba traditions – as they struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore while planning to migrate to the mainland. On the eve of their departure, an extended family picnic and ritual farewell departure is arranged, even as a clan elder works to keep the family together and pass on the knowledge of their ancestors as they move ever further from their roots.

Daughters of the Dust was met with wild critical acclaim and rapturous audience response when it initially opened in 1991. Its theatrical re-release by Cohen Media Group in 2016 was equally well-received, with the film garnering an outstanding 96% Fresh rating at reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Named to the National Film Registry in 2004 by the Library of Congress, the evocative Daughters of the Dust continues to cast a long legacy and still resonates today, most recently as a major in influence on Beyoncé’s 2016 video album Lemonade.

 Daughters of the Dust has received a new 2K restoration (in conjunction with UCLA), which includes with proper color grading overseen by cinematographer Arthur Jafa and enhanced audio. The Blu-ray and DVD contain a host of bonus features, including an audio commentary with director Dash and Michelle Materre, an Associate Professor of Media Studies and Film at The New School.