Nook NotesPick a film
Julie Dash

Director

Julie Dash

Born October 22, 1952 in Long Island City, New York, USA17 films

Julie Ethel Dash (born October 22, 1952) is an American film director, writer and producer. Dash received her MFA in 1985 at the UCLA Film School and is one of the graduates and filmmakers known as the L.A. Rebellion. The L.A. Rebellion refers to the first African and African-American students who studied film at UCLA. After she had written and directed several shorts, her 1991 feature Daughters of the Dust became the first full-length film directed by an African-American woman to obtain general theatrical release in the United States. Daughters of the Dust was named one of the most significant films of the last 30 years, by IndieWire.

Read more

Dash has worked in television since the late 1990s. Her television movies include Funny Valentines (1999), Incognito (1999), Love Song (2000), and The Rosa Parks Story (2002), starring Angela Bassett. The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center commissioned Dash to direct Brothers of the Borderland in 2004, as an immersive film exhibit narrated by Oprah Winfrey following the path of women gaining freedom on the Underground Railroad. In 2017, Dash directed episodes of Queen Sugar on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Start here

The best way into Julie Dash's work
Daughters of the Dust posterFirst watchDaughters of the Dust19916.3In 1902, a Gullah family on the Sea Islands off South Carolina decide whether to migrate to the mainland, risking their unique cultural heritage.View film

Filmography

17 films as director
  1. 2026Wanda Sykes: LegacyDirector
  2. 2025HomeGoingDirector
  3. 2023Seeking: Mapping Our Gullah Geechee StoryDirector
  4. 2017Travel Notes of a Geechee GirlDirector
  5. 2016Standing at the Scratch LineDirector
  6. 2002The Rosa Parks StoryDirector
  7. 2000Love SongDirector
  8. 1999IncognitoDirector
  9. 1999Funny ValentinesDirector
  10. 1997Subway StoriesDirector
  11. 1991Daughters of the DustDirector
  12. 1991Praise HouseDirector
  13. 1989RelativesDirector
  14. 1988Breaths - Sweet Honey in the RockDirector
  15. 1982IllusionsDirector
  16. 1977Diary of an African NunDirector
  17. 1975Four WomenDirector