For International Women’s Day, Cinema RITCS and Pilar come together to bring you a story from women, about women, with special attention to Black women and those living in diaspora, where women come to be personifications of the preservation of a culture and history.

DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991) follows three generations of women living on Saint Helena Island off the coast of South Carolina in the United States. The women are part of the Gullah people, descendants of enslaved Africans who were able to preserve much of their indigenous traditions and developed their own Creole language, living in relative isolation from the white people that exploited them.
As the family contemplates leaving the island, we learn of their folklore, their history and their way of life, handed down by their ancestors. In a non-linear narrative structure reminiscent of West African story tradition, the film is narrated by an unborn child reflecting on a distant past. 

A mesmerizing film by a Black woman, celebrating Black history, DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST continues to compel and energize young filmmakers, especially those coming from minority communities themselves. With strong aesthetic sensibility, beautiful costume work and a deeply felt, resonant story concerning the tensions between past and modernity as well as between liberty and tradition, this is an unmissable film which is shown all too rarely.

- Written by Flora Woudstra, who curated 'Daughters of the Dust'

One screening will be in Ritcs Cinema on 3.04, the other one will be at Pilar on 4.04.