Acclaimed producer, writer and director Julie Dash, maker of the film Daughters of the Dust and CBS television movie The Rosa Parks Story, will give a talk, “Smuggling Dreams into Reality: Black Women in Filmmaking,” Friday, Oct. 5, 3 to 5 p.m. at Vanderbilt University.
Dash’s lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held at Sarratt Cinema in Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Student Center. A reception will follow at the university’s Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center, which is co-sponsoring Dash’s talk with the International Black Film Festival of Nashville.
With the debut of Daughters of the Dust in January 1992, Dash became the first African-American woman to have a full-length general theatrical release in the United States. “Daughters” was included in O – The Oprah Magazine’s list of the 50 Greatest Chick Flicks. In 1999, the 25th annual Newark Black Film Festival honored Julie and the film as being one of the most important cinematic achievements in black cinema in the 20th century.
In March 2007, Dash received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Images of Black Women Film Festival in the United Kingdom.
Among her other works are the MTV original feature Love Song starring R&B singers Monica, Tyrese and TLC’s Chili and Incognito, a romantic thriller starring actors Richard T. Jones, Vanessa Williams, Phil Morris and Ron Glass with Rodger Guenveur Smith. She has also directed music videos for artists such as Peabo Bryson, Sweet Honey in the Rock and Tracy Chapman.
For more information about the event, call the Bishop Joseph Black Cultural Center at Vanderbilt at 615-322-2524. For more information about the 2007 International Black Film Festival of Nashville to be held Oct. 4-6, visit www.ibffnashville.com.
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Media Contact: Princine Lewis, 615-322-NEWS
princine.l.lewis@vanderbilt.edu