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Message from: (african-cinema-conference@xc.org)
About: FW: QUERY: Julie Dash's *Daughter's of the Dust*

Sun, 17 Aug 97 10:27:00 PDT

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    Originally from: "Frances K. Gateward" <gateward@uiuc.edu>
    Originally dated: Sun, 17 Aug 97 10:27:00 PDT

    I regularly teach Daughters of the Dust, both in an
    introduction to film course and in a course on contemporary
    African-American cinema. I don't know what course you are
    using it for, but timing is the key.

    I find it best to save it for the end of the semester, when
    students have a good grounding in film form and aesthetics.
    Also, if some difficult films are screened earlier (i.e.
    avante garde or modernist) they are more likely to work at
    reading the text.

    I usually don't have a problem with students understanding
    the dialogue. Yes, they may have a problem at first, but
    they usually fall into the rhythm of the speech very
    quickly.

    There is quite a lot of literature out there about the film.
    I would consider the book written by Julie Dash herself,
    Jackie Bobo's Black Women as Spectators, and Gloria Gibson's
    article "The Ties that Bind" published in the Quarterly
    Review of Film and Video, v15 #2. There is also a new book
    out called Women Filmmakers of the African and Asian
    Diaspora.

    But don't worry about the students so much. If popular
    audiences could handle it, I am sure film students will do
    fine.

    Frances Gateward
    gateward@uiuc.edu



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