Originally posted 1/2015
Julie Dash was born and raised in New York City. She has toured nationally and internationally with her work, and she has received numerous awards since embarking on her film career. With the debut of Daughters of the Dust in January 1992, Julie Dash became the first African American woman to have a full-length general theatrical release in the United States.
O Magazine included Daughters among it’s 50 Greatest Chick Flicks, and in 1999, the twenty-fifth Annual Newark Black Film Festival honored Julie and her film Daughters of the Dust as being one of the most important cinematic achievements in Black Cinema in the 20th century. In December 2004, The Library of Congress placed Daughters of the Dust in the National Film Registry; Daughters of the Dust joins 400 American films preserved as a National Treasures.
In 2004 Dash made Brothers of the Borderland, a work commissioned by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Narrated by Oprah Winfrey, the film features the character of Alice, an escaped slave whose story represents an amalgamation of historic figures. The film is shown in the Harriet Tubman Theater.
Ms. Dash also directed the NAACP Image Award winning CBS Network Television Movie, THE ROSA PARKS STORY, winner of The Family Television Award and The New York Christopher Award. Angela Bassett received an Emmy Nomination for her performance as Rosa Parks. For the 55th Annual Directors Guild Awards, Julie Dash was nominated for her Outstanding Directorial Achievement on The Rosa Parks Story, and she became the first African American woman nominated in the category of Primetime Movies Made for Television at The Directors Guild of America.
Her long form, dramatic narrative films include: Love Song. an MTV original feature starring R&B singers Monica, Tyress and TLC’s Chili; Incognito, a romantic thriller staring Richard T. Jones, Vanessa Williams, Phil Morris, Ron Glass with Rodger Guenveur Smith; and the ENCORE/StarZ3 Funny Valentines starring Alfre Woodard, Loretta Devine and C.C.H. Pounder. She wrote and directed an episode of Women for ShowTime Cable Network, as well as Sax Cantor Riff, HBO’s Subway Stories for Producers Jonathan Demme and Rosie Perez.
She has directed Music Videos with musical artists including Raphael Saadiq with Tony, Toni, Tone; Keb ‘Mo, Peabo Bryson, Adriana Evans, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Tracy Chapman’s Give Me One Reason, which was nominated for MTV’s Best Female Vocalist, 1996. Her critically acclaimed short film Illusions, a drama set in Hollywood 1942, won the 1989 Jury Prize for Best Film of the Decade, awarded by the Black Filmmakers Foundation.
Ms. Dash earned her M.F.A. in Film & Television production at UCLA; received her B.A. in Film Production from CCNY, and she was also a Fellow at the American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film Studies, the AFI conservatory at Greystone Mansion. When not working on her projects, Ms. Dash is a frequent lecturer at many of the leading universities across the United States, including Stanford University, Princeton, Harvard and Yale.