Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture 2020: Julie Dash and the L.A. Rebellion: Architects of the Impossible

American film director, writer, and producer Julie Dash is a member of the L.A. Rebellion, a generation of African and African American artists who studied at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. These young filmmakers crafted a new Black cinema—an alternative to the classical Hollywood canon. Dash discusses her early life in New York City and her involvement with the art and politics of filmmaking through her association with the Studio Museum of Harlem, a connection that ultimately led to her participation in the L.A. Rebellion. Her 1991 feature Daughters of the Dust, a fictionalized retelling of her father’s Gullah family roots, became the first full-length film directed by an African American woman to obtain general theatrical release in the United States.