#Diary of an African Nun

[roseillith]

THE DIARY OF A AFRICAN NUN (1977) dir. JULIE DASH

[exhalereleased]

"The Diary of an African Nun" by Alice Walker

[dizzymoods]

An absolutely devastating loss. One of my favorite actresses. Her work in Bushmama and Daughters were reasons I went to Howard

[unbiddentongue]

Diary of an African Nun by Julie Dash c. (1977)

[lboogie1906]

Julie Ethel Dash (October 22, 1952) is a film director, writer, and producer. She received her MFA at the UCLA Film School and is one of the graduates and filmmakers known as the L.A. Rebellion. 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 a general theatrical release in the US.

Daughters of the Dust was named one of the most significant films of the last 30 years, by IndieWire.

She was born in Queens to Rhudine Henderson and Charles Edward Dash. She graduated from Jamaica High School and went on to receive a BA in film production from City Colleges of New York. She was raised in the Queensbridge Housing Project in Long Island City, Queens. She studied at the Studio Museum of Harlem. She wrote the script for a documentary for the New York Urban Coalition, entitled Working Models of Success.

After graduating from CCNY, she moved to Los Angeles for graduate studies. She completed a 2-year Conservatory Fellowship in Producing/Writing at AFI Conservatory. She became one of a new generation of African and African American filmmakers known as the “Black insurgents” or L.A. Rebellion.

She directed Working Models of Success (1976) and the next year, produced Four Women (1975). It won a gold medal for Women in Film at the 1978 Miami International Film Festival. She directed the film Diary of an African Nun (1977). Screened at the Los Angeles Film Exposition, it earned a Director’s Guild Award for a Student Film.

She 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. The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center commissioned her 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. She directed episodes of Queen Sugar.

At the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, it was announced her next project will be a biopic of civil rights icon Angela Davis. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphakappaalpha

[asaakim]

Diary of an African Nun (1977) dir. Julie Dash

[rochellekohanteb]

Blog Post 4

Blog Post 4 

One artist that we have discussed in this class that I would like to highlight in this blog post is Julie Dash. Julie Dash is known as a filmmaker, music video and commercial director, author, and website creator. Her studies in film started in 1969 in Harlem and eventually led her to the American Film Institute, as well as our very own UCLA.  As a student, she made The Diary of an African Nun in 1977 which was based on the short story by Alice Walker and won a student award from the Directors Guild of America. Later on, her short film Illusions in 1982 won the Jury prize for best film of the decade, which was awarded by te Black Filmmakers Foundation. Some of her television films consisted of “Love song” in 2000, which starred R&B singer Monica Arnold, the thriller “Incognito” in 1999, and the domestic drama “Funny Valentines” also in 1999. Furthermore, Dash was also nominated for a Directors Guild Award for “The Rosa Parks Story” in 2002 which starred Angela Bassett. Eventually, Dash made her first feature in 1991, and one that I want to highlight in this blog, Daughters of the Dust. This was the first film by an African American woman that received a general theatrical release in the United States. The film was later named to the National film registry by the Library of Congress in 2004. 

“Daughters of the Dust” was both written and directed by Julie Dash. It is a 1991 film that was set in 1902 and tells the story of the Peazant family who are descendants of African slaves and live in the Sea Islands off of the coast of South Carolina. The film goes on to explore how complex the lives of the characters are, as well as the obstacles they are faced with such as their cultural heritage, family traditions, and the main decision of whether to stay on the island or move. 

One main theme of this film is memory and its connection to Afrofuturism. Memory plays a significant role in this film and is shown through the characters deep connection to their ancestors and the history of their people. Nana Peazant, a character in the film, plays a significant role in showing how important memory is to Afrofuturism by serving as an archive of her family's ancestral memory and wisdom. She also has visions that provide a link between the future, present, and past, which ultimately allows us, the viewers, to understand some of the struggles and obstacles of the Peazant family in a wider sense of their African-American heritage and history. 

[nomallmovieschicago]

2 February 2023

Film: ADAPTATION AND BEYOND (Film Program, d. various, USA)

Forum: Film Studies Center  Format: Digital and 16mm

Observations: The centerpiece of this program was Liz White's seldom-screened 1980 adaptation of OTHELLO, filmed intermittently during 1962 to 1966 with a Black cast in Martha's Vineyard, starring Yaphet Kotto in the title role. Also screened were two shorts, Julie Dash’s "The Diary of an African Nun" (1977) and Anita W. Addison’s "Eva’s Man" (1976). Again, regrettably, attendance seems to be down though those who've stuck with the series have made a loyal and enthusaistic audience.

[renatedagmarmilada]

off sounds over from a lab.

“can you pass Francene’s M.A.” Francene (Powers) is a worker at the lab St Barths Human Research who has adapted and copied huge numbers of my poems, even copying some of my diary straight for the ‘Cosmopolitan’ Magazine. “She needs somehow to get to a higher level than you!” (me- Francine formerly didn’t have a school GCSE but is on the genius-maker machine of the lab..latest technology, brilliant stuff with evil usage by cheats.) ...and why not, they asked to have my M.A. failed and it was..though I have copies of the papers. Over the t.v. which they use constantly for their conversations(? – guilt?), they let me know it was actually a second….then my seventy percent Institute of Linguists was failed, “she needs no more education” though I am a mother tongue speaker. I was slow that time and didn’t keep a copy. Remember, always keep a copy of everything. I met one student when I was at University who complained that all Africans were down marked. I wouldn’t believe her then, I do now but with sadness as we had always placed education just below God and the British not much below that. “The Royals are all given automatic firsts,” put forward the lab, and one famous lady stormed to the University when it looked as though her son was going to get a fail and warned them, “don’t you dare.” and they didn’t..so the lab said…Though we come from large families, all, even back to my grandfather’s nineteen siblings, were all educated and most privately, our respect for education is was always so great. Pam’s daughter (of the Pensions Ministry) who was given my notes from off the lab machine was also granted an automatic first – for copying? She wrote identical work from my notes for which my University gave me a second..(I didn’t mind, my guy was a Cambridge man and very, very fussy to detail, word count and presentation)... all a bit of irony, as I had written them from a german language book, being tri-lingual and translating easily in my head. Poor girl had only to go to the Goethe Insitute of which she should have been a member if she was studying German at a reasonable University, and would have found an english copy there! Anyway the lab insisted she be given a first. Poor girl was then given a job in a Bank but didn’t have enough German to converse with the germans properly. You see it never pays to copy.  I tell all my students that. I must start telling them of these unfortunates who feel it necessary to cheat. God created a niche for us all, and cheating from others is always a stupid business, it catches up with you when you can’t do the work. At my orphanage I learnt from the nuns : several people always know, God, you and those whom you’ve cheated so others always find out. ‘Pensions Pauline’ has been used by the lab to cheat both my old mother out of loads of money, a refugee who lost everything, even our photographs and my baby clothes, a pensioner, they taxed her pension as a millionaire…as well as using her for experiment and myself and sons, too long a tale to go into, whom the lab had used as small boys and want to make sure they are not sued for it. She is still being used even at ninety. I find it slightly amusing, as we in Europe have been hammered for the things which went on in our education systems, and now I find that the Brits are worse, not better. “Keep this from the Minister.”.the bossess has said. I doubt the Health Ministry knows half of what goes on at that lab, a whiff of the bossess’s rear and that’s it, the men are lost..Civil Servants Dennis, Arthur and Arnold all…and Ministers alike… we all know men think with their penis.”She breezes into our office like fresh air, after our stale, staid old wives,” they admitted.  I was a stale,staid, old, faithful wife, so I am not sympathic with such snakes in the grass as this bosses. She destroys the name of all women who are trying to work in a man’s world and don’t want to sleep with every male who comes along, with her underhand actions and she could keep it out of the offices! The lab play with all the Ministries as part of their tactics.  A Junior Minister took all my family stories from of the lab machine, (they had processed us illegally and had us tagged?? I had headaches!) because, poor soul, he said they were better than his and then wrote them as his own to be published. I presume he didn’t write the lies the lab St Barths Human Research put about..”We laid down blacking lies about her evrywhere where we intervened remote and messed about.” But no, he would have been told and mostly people see me and realise. We were the naive ones, not most other people, having been protected by our service to those on High, who treated us so well. “we thought we could disable, cripple, discredit and destroy her work first before we release her at about seventy from when she was incarcerated at forty. I have all her letters here to the House of Lords, who will never see them and have deselected all emails for weeks now. We purge every so often totally, the rest of the time we allow small bits through.’’ (they put their own role plays answering for my friends on the tv but blocking real contacts, and try to give me ‘friends’ they choose. None works, nor do their ‘bondings.’That is what the tax payer pays for, idiots sadists to mess loyal citizens about. Thank goodness for sites like this one.) The lies are still biting, but I can only pray and hope God hears them to weigh the scales of judgement one day..but such rubbish makes up a ’’phase out’’ as they call it nowadays, the Austrian Lab called it a destruction programme too rightly. I was a bit miffed about the young Junior Health Minister though, as my family, the Feketes are without a shadow of a doubt descended from Mongolia’s waves in 1316 in central Royal Hungary, a far cry from the merchants of Israel of his ancestors and our other side, the Bertodis came from (Turin in )Italy with the Royal Entourage when the Queen of Genoa, Elizabeth married King Phillip of Hungary. However, I do feel sorry for him. I could have thought of fantastic stories for him had he let me know, incorporating his own peoples. I am a great one for culture! One Research person who is not white commented, ‘she’s still tribal.’ It must be awful to have so little pride in your ancestors..I love mine, the good, the bad and the evil… including that womanising grandfather of mine…so brave as a tiny, fat, round lion who shaved his hair to a Kojak from twenty seven years old because it had gone white and he didn’t want the ladies to know, as indeed was my temperamental, neurotic, clever mother, of such bravery she frightens even me, far more than the crooked rogue lab does, even at ninety years old. Well, Chagal adapted traditional Ukrainian cultural paintings but backed by western jewish money, he became famous and Mrs Miller of the lab, who had filled in all the forms, illegally I might add, in our names, wife of the axeman of the lab (a real swine, I know on my own skin) wrote our stories to the Women’s World, but by implication made them jewish, using a well-known jewish name as writer. Personally, I’d be ashamed and give them their quarter when ever I can but shame is not something which is part of an eye for an eye, I suppose. Her answer, we take any opportunity, regardless of shame. Sad! I won’t tell you of the ‘defilement programme’ they used all day by microsound during lectures…yet, another ‘cowboy’s weird theories’ tested. Biggest laugh of all..the lab Pakis been given my work to copy are now seriously sending it off for printing as their own cultural life and work!! European Jews and Europeans, ok dimwits and lovers of the lab bossess, but flippin-hell, Pakistanis!! I taught in Pakistan years ago, at the British Council and honestly, there is so much to write about there, it is totally not necessary at all. quote? The lab have made it easier for the Pakis over here and destroyed you loyal citizens we asked to work here after the war, who rebuilt our heavy industry. I don’t know how, but God will turn that one back at yous, believe me. A friend stabbed in the back is always avenged, somehow and anyway, one enemy is one enemy too many, even silent, socialised people like we. Hitler thought we were weak too, but felt our claws in more corners than he knew.

THE ARTIFICIAL MAKING OF GENIUS!

’’DO I HAVE PERMISSION TO MAKE BRILLIANT? THE SECOND FROM SCUNTHORPE ANOTHER OF HER CLASSMATES TO PUT ONTO THE LAB MACHINE WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE SO WE CAN THEN WRITE IN OTHERS HANDS ‘THERE WAS ANOTHER GIRL IN THE CLASS’

ANYTHING TO OUTWRITE OUR VICTIM FAY THE LAB AXE MAN’S DAUGHTER OF REDBRIDGE IS ALREADY BEING MADE BRILLIANT NOW STEPHANIE BOSSWELL VALERIE LOCKWOOD WENDY STAFF..WHICH SHOULD WE .. WE ALREADY USE THEM SIEVE THEM FIND ALL ABOUT THEM HAVE THEM ON THE LAB MACHINE.. THESE SCUNTHORPE GIRLS FORMERLY FROM DONCASTER ROAD CHURCH SCHOOL SCHOOL MATES OF OUR VICTIM AND HER FAMILY.’‘

But who cares, only YOUS at the lab. History will tell all. No it will not, the deeds of the last two decades have been totally covered and will never come to light.

Once upon a time you needed to be against the State, be a criminal, have a loose tongue, now it is called death therapy and pain therapy. So many deaths, lecturers, students and the rest. A system which is only about killing and making brilliant what is not, is a very bad start to a new world….

’’we destroy anyone we don’t like.’’ a Human Research person. IF ONLY I HAD SPOKEN LONG AGO!

FROM  the Automatic Answerer. Human Research St Barths. London.

The point being that such power should be policed and used more carefully under proper scientific conditions. Talk about bad science! The Americans have discovered some wonderful human-based technology here and readily admit they should have been more careful to whom they passed it on to, but can’t really be blamed as cunning, devious lying is the hallmark of this particular group. History has shown us that great power such as given this lab can be used to great good or to evil when used merely for personal stepping stones of greed and selfishness as this incompetent, corrupt rogue lab. These insane maniacs will ofcourse get golden handshakes from the same taxpayers’ money whom they have crucified on their altar of personal greed and useless power with a host of excuses such as, “by the end of the century it will be in use.” They said that in the ninetees too and the government is perfectly aware that the lab is ill educated to use this stuff properly. Their secret messing about with severely handicapped people is hardly the same as killing off talented, useful, working lecturer/ artists with ‘over-use’ (that’s what they blithely term as manslaughter) and all the rest of their horrid deeds in Universities and out.. the mad boss (a woman) of this system and most of their inadequately educated workers (some from Pakistan, unable to speak proper english half illiterate) actually believe stress is due to sexual frustration and treat it in a horrible manner (a G.P. just puts patients on a course of pills) They call them hot women and if mentally handicapped, at times use them when they have ‘heated’ them (I had thought that had gone out with Freud, who was a despicable character, no wonder the Chinese banned him for so long) I had read a couple of Freud’s books, so am aware, and can still remember whole passages he wrote so know what I am talking about. -you know, our east european women were suffering from stress from post war Europe and quite enough rape for years after coming here- it is merely that every nerve in the body reacts in stress and horror, as indeed with soldiers, their adrenalin makes them do uncharasteristic things..I as a teacher and artist should not have to tell a science person such simple biology – they even treated my dear lady with this rubbish, and yes, they have already said, once they find the youth elixir, they have promised the Royals it first, for which we and others in the population are being tortured with medical complaints remote… and Princess Anne is a woman who wants to win! Now what could be the meaning behind that quote? She wants a winning situation artificially, in her position…

[treelavvn]

Diary of an African Nun, 1977

La Belle Noiseuse, 1991

[roseillith]

THE DIARY OF A AFRICAN NUN (1977) dir. JULIE DASH

[exhalereleased]

"The Diary of an African Nun" by Alice Walker

[oldfilmsflicker]

Diary of an African Nun, 1977 (dir. Julie Dash)

[cookie-face77]

[hmncndtns]

Barbara O. Jones in The Diary of an African Nun (Julie Dash, 1977)

[fuckyeahwomenfilmdirectors]

Diary of an African Nun dir. Julie Dash (1977)

An African nun is consumed by fear and doubt about her decision to take the solemn vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Her anguish intensifies night after night as she lies on a hard bed in her small room at the convent and listens to the rhythmic, beckoning drums of her village.