Daughters of the Dust

[rapta]

Dual Format Edition coming June 19th.

[dda1996a]

Aside from inspiring Beyonce's Lemonade and being a historically important landmark in African American cinema, is it any good?

[zedz]

It's great, and loooong overdue. Very different vibe to most other films by black filmmakers, especially at the time. Burnett and Malick are the most obvious reference points, but it's very much its own thing.

Bravo, BFI!

Whoever thought we'd get Limite, Taipei Story, Daughter of the Nile and Daughters of the Dust all announced within a few weeks of one another?

[knives]

Apparently this comes from Cohen so expect them to make an announcement as well.

[rapta]

Cohen already announced theirs last Summer; it's coming out next month.

[antnield]

[goblinfootballs]

Cohen's copy is sitting on my shelf, waiting to be watched!

Edited after seeing earlier post dates.

[MichaelB]

Full specs announced:

Daughters of the Dust
A film by Julie Dash

In cinemas today and Dual Format Edition (DVD/Blu-ray) release on 26 June 2017

The first widely released film by an African American female director, Daughters of the Dust was met with wild critical acclaim and rapturous audience response when it opened in 1991. The film and its legacy still resonates, most recently as a major influence in Beyoncé’s video album Lemonade.

This new restoration of Julie Dash’s landmark film, by Cohen Media Group in conjunction with UCLA, and overseen by cinematographer Arthur Jafa, means audiences will finally see the film exactly as the director intended.

In South Carolina’s Sea Islands at the dawn of the 20th century, a multi-generational family of the Gullah community – former west-African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors’ Yoruba traditions – struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore while contemplating a migration to the mainland and even further from their roots.

Special features

• Presented in High Definition and Standard Definition
• Audio Commentary with Julie Dash and Michelle Materre
• An Interview with Julie Dash (2017, 72 mins): the director in conversation with Dr Stephane Dunn
• Q&A with director Julie Dash and actress Cheryl Lynn Bruce (2017, 25 mins): from the 2016 Chicago International Film Festival, moderated by actress Regina Taylor
• An Interview with Arthur Jafa (2017, 51 mins): the cinematographer interviewed by Karen Alexander
• 2016 theatrical trailer
• Illustrated booklet with full film credits, essays and reviews by Jennifer DeClue, Gaylene Gould, Karen Alexander and Lizzie Francke

Product details

RRP: £19.99/ Cat. no. BFIB1273 / Cert PG
USA / 1991 / colour / 112 mins / English with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles / original aspect ratio 1.85:1
BD50: 1080p, 24fps, PCM 1.0 mono (48kHz/24-bit) / DVD9: PAL, 25fps, Dolby Digital 1.0 mono (192kbps)

...and here's the BFI's new trailer.

[DeprongMori]

Has anyone seen any comparisons between the Cohen and the BFI release on this? (I had ended up ordering the BFI.) They both have the same supplements — a couple hours worth of material, but the Cohen puts them on a second BD-50. I’m wondering if the PQ of the BFI suffers in comparison.

I usually refer to DVDbeaver on questions like this, but it looks like he hasn’t reviewed either disc.

[zedz]

This is a fine presentation of a very beautiful film, and the extras are magnificent and very lengthy. Long, detailed conversations with lots of technical detail, and surprisingly little redundancy between Dash's feature-length commentary and feature-length interview. Arthur Jafa's interview is one of the very best cinematographer interviews I've ever seen, and really gets to grips with the technical challenges of this particular project as well as talking insightfully about broader topics like film vs. digital. It looks like the Cohen disc is only missing the commentary, but all the extras here are so good that it makes the BFI an easy choice.

[dda1996a]

It's a shame they couldn't include any of Dash's short films