A maverick woman director of the African diaspora, Julie Dash broke new ground with Daughters of the Dust, her 1992 multilingual period piece. In the following interview, she discusses her work, and the politics of making films in a climate that resists provocative themes and unfamiliar characters.

Moikgantsi Kgama: How do you define yourself as a filmmaker?

Julie Dash: I like to take chances. I like to, each time I do a film, do something different. My main focus is on redefining how we see woman, specifically woman of the African diaspora. I like to do the type of films that I always wanted to see, those that include dynamic women doing a host of different things in lots of different situations.

MK: When you say you want to redefine women of the diaspora, who are you creating that definition for? Who is your audience?

JD: Everyone. The way I see it, films that come out of Hollywood go toward the same old form, especially when it comes to women. That is not what I want to repeat, because you have other people doing that. And those [characters] are not the women I know.

MK: When you talk about Hollywood films, do you think your films have been accepted by the Hollywood mainstream? And do you care?

JD: I don’t really care. When I decided to be a filmmaker years ago, it was not my intention to please Hollywood. I was always very clear about the types of stories that I wanted to tell or tackle. I found that after doing Daughters of the Dust , which did well as an independent film—it had thirteen prints in distribution at one time—it laid the foundation for a lot of other independent films that came afterward. But I have not had an easy time getting financing for the new films that I would like to do. I believed that because I had an independent film that did well, that continues to do well, that is winning awards all over the world, I would be able to find financing in Hollywood. And that proved not to be true.

MK: What type of projects would you like to do?

JD: I’d like to do everything—adventure, stories on the road, suspense thrillers, all of that. I would love to be able to do all that with a black woman in the lead. Unfortunately, the powers that be do not see that as viable. When I present my ideas, pitch my stories, send my screenplays out, they say there is no audience for this. They come up with every excuse in the world.

I think the reason for that is that my films center around black women. If it is not a white male story, they are just not interested. If you look at the people who came out of Sundance the same year that I did (1991), when Daughters won for [Excellence in] Cinematography, all of those filmmakers who were male, including Mattie Rich, have made two or three films [since].

What is interesting is that every film that has come out with black women in it has done well. We have proved them wrong. Eve’s Bayou proves them wrong. What are they going to say now?

MK: Do you have another film in the works right now?

JD: I have several screenplays that I have written, but no, I don’t have a film in the works.

I’ve done television, HBO, Showtime, but I have not done another feature film.

MK: Do you think the filmmaking experience is different for women?

JD: For me it is. For me as a woman. I know there are plenty of filmmakers who just want to direct [anything]; they don’t care what it is. But that is not my mission.

MK: What is your mission?

JD: I work from the culture of woman. I want to do films for and about women, but not just necessarily looking for the female audience. For everyone.

MK: What inspires you to direct?

JD: I like telling stories, I enjoy it. I’ve been directing for a long time. I was directing before I called myself a director—I was just a filmmaker. I belonged to a filmmaking community.

MK: How has life been post-Daughters of the Dust? Do you find yourself constantly referring to it?

JD: I am not constantly referring to it. I am working on so many other things. I have a CD-ROM prototype called Digital Diva that we are working on now. I have a book that came out last month, that is the continuing story of Daughters of the Dust. The publishing company approached me and asked if I had any screenplays that I couldn’t sell and would I like to adapt them into a novel. I said, “Sure, I have plenty of them sitting around. I have screenplays up the wazoo.”

MK: Is there anything you have to say to young filmmakers or young women who would like to follow in your footsteps?

JD: The most important thing is you have to decide ahead of time what you would like to do. There are always going to be obstacles. There are always going to be emotional obstacles. There are always going to be people standing in your way, telling you you cannot do this or you cannot do that, this won’t sell and that won’t sell. I think the trends come and go, and I am remaining optimistic. I have many more films to make, and just because doors are closed to me now does not mean they will always be closed to me. So I just keep working.

MK: Of all the films you’ve done, have any of them fulfilled your expectations?

JD: No, film is completely what you expect it to be. It starts out as one thing when it is just in your mind, and then you write it and find out it is another thing. Then you go into production and shoot it and it’s another thing, and still when it’s edited, it’s another. Daughters is pretty close to what I wanted, but still only 90 or 95 percent of what I really wanted.

MK: How do you feel when you get to the end and it’s only 90 percent? Are you happy it’s 90 percent?

JD: (laughter) I’m usually happy that it’s done. I haven’t reached the point where [I say], “Yeah, that was it.”

MK: I assume that, as an independent filmmaker, you don’t have to make concessions when you work with people, or when you gain funding. Has that been your experience?

JD: There are always compromises and concessions. You have to be flexible in that regard. It is easier to make a single-voice film in the independent sector than if you are working for television or something like that. [But] I look at the ramifications of those concessions. Sometimes those concessions are what make the art alive and interesting.

Sometimes you can be so blinded by your own conceit that you don’t see the full picture. I try to look at the larger picture of things.

MK: Tell me your views on distribution.

JD: Distribution is key to the success of the film. Unless it reaches a broad audience, it will only do so well.

MK: In terms of the black film community, do you think black filmmakers should be distributing their own films?

JD: Yes, that’s where the money is. Black distributors need to learn how to distribute broadly. I know it takes millions to do that, but that’s what is necessary to go to the next level. With Daughters, people weren’t sure it would do well, [but] Daughters created an audience, the same audience that went to Waiting to Exhale. That audience is not going away. There are more of them coming out every day. There is a definite niche market there.

MK: In comparing Waiting to Exhale with Daughters of the Dust, Daughters showed a part of our history which has been overlooked, but Waiting to Exhale was huge box-office success. Do you feel the pressure to make movies for a more mainstream audience that doesn’t necessarily want to learn?

JD: I don’t see it as pressure at all. I see it as my delight. I love it. Most films are made to serve a privileged society. They know these women. They are very comfortable with them. I don’t show the kind of women that people are more comfortable with.

MK: A lot of people said they had trouble understanding Daughters because it was in the Gullah dialect, and the accents were very heavy. When you made the decision to use Gullah, did you consider those things?

JD: Absolutely. I considered them, and I thought about all the other fine independent films that I’ve seen with very strong dialects in them and how people would struggle through them. Your ear can adjust to them if you want it to. With certain black sounds, people disengage [and say], “Oh, I can’t understand it.”

Let’s look at Miller’s Crossing, the wonderful film by the Coen brothers. It’s not only in Irish-American brogue, but they’re using slang from the twenties. It’s a difficult film to understand, [but] people still watch it, no problem. So yeah, I was very much aware of it. Why does our stuff have to be so easy, [with] simplistic, stereotypical characters? I know people are tired of hearing that word, but that’s exactly what they love. If you offer a new character to them, a real character who is not a victim, they are like, “I don’t know who this is, I can’t watch it, it’s unacceptable, it’s not for me, it’s too culturally specific.” All of these things start pouring out of them. All these defenses about why they can’t watch it.

How many films about different cultures did we watch that we had to learn and understand? I mean if you think about it, as a child growing up, I’m sitting in front of the TV, watching soap operas. I grew up in Queens Bridge Project. I don’t know anyone who acts like that. I’m sitting on the edge of the couch, constantly translating, thinking why would she say or do that. [It’s a] totally different reality. I didn’t know people like that. I grew up translating, so I am not afraid. I am not afraid of different cultures.

With her films, including Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala, and Kama Sutra, Mira Nair explores the explosive terrain where class, race, and gender intersect. Here, she talks about her “guerrilla-style” filmmaking.

Moikgantsi Kgama: In Kama Sutra, sexuality seemed to be used as a source of power, in a caste society where women’s social and economic status was limited. One prevalent criticism was that the Indian community was stereotyped—depicted as exotic—in these sexual images. I’d like to know how you responded to those criticisms.

Mira Nair: I didn’t hear them much. It is a very tough mantel to carry, when you are among the very few people who are bringing to the world images of your country. If there were ten or even twenty of us who got our films seen internationally the way Kama Sutra was seen, then the gray area that I discuss would be more acceptable. It’s just that there are so few images of Indians seen internationally on screen that I am expected to do it all. Which would, of course, would be the formula of a deadly boring movie.

The same people who thought that I was selling the poverty of India when I made Salaam Bombay would say that Kama Sutra was exotic. But that happened to be the time I was exploring gore and sexual debauchery and decadence. That was the background against which I was telling my tale. My attempt was at least to make an opulent film that would feel real. It is hard to make a film of kings and queens and courtesans without someone accusing you of being exotic. The point is, from an Indian point of view, it is part of my culture and history.

MK: Was the response to Kama Sutra from Indians different than the response to the film from Americans.

MN: The film is still banned in India. I have been struggling for over sixteen months in court protesting this ban—it’s a long and troubled story of censorship. [So,] I can’t really tell you of a broad [response] in India because it has not been seen there. It seems to do very well in places where we have the Indian diaspora, the Pacific Rim, the West Indies, parts of America and stuff like that. It seems to have reached many people.

MK: How has it been different working in “Baliwood” as opposed to Hollywood?

MN: I don’t work in Baliwood. I neither belong there nor here. I feel at home in both places, but I don’t belong in either. I’m a real guerrilla-style film maker, an independent filmmaker. I create money for my films from a series of sources both Indian and non-Indian—mostly non-Indian. I make the film and sell it to the world. That’s how I operate, so I don’t operate out of a found system. I create my own system.

MK: What kind of obstacles have you faced?

MN: When I was first trying to raise money for Salaam Bombay it was impossible, in fact I had to mortgage and sell and do everything possible. I was lucky that the film became an international success. It allowed me to be taken very seriously the second time around with Mississippi Masala. Even with that film, whenever I would tell [people it was] an interracial love story between an Asian woman and an African-American man, they would ask me to make the protagonist white. I would say “Oh, yeah, I can assure you the waiters in the movie will be white.” I knew that if I put Michelle Pfieffer in that movie, I would have the money in the bank tomorrow.

If you are trying to do something that is more mainstream with white folks in it, it is much easier [to get funding] if you have had an independent film prior to that which has been successful. If you are trying to do something that has not been done before, or is rare, you are going to have trouble convincing people.

MK: For Mississippi Masala, how did you raise the money?

MN: We went two ways. We went to all the distributors and we tried to put pieces of the pie together by selling, say, to England, France, Germany, and Italy, and creating a sum of money to make the film. While we did that, we also had an offer at that time from a U.S. distribution company, which is no longer existing, to pay for the entire film. We made a decision that it would be much more convenient financially, and much less risky, to go with the one-stop-shopping deal.

MK: Did you have to make any concessions to take that deal?

MN: Well, I had intended that film for Denzel Washington. But if, for some reason, I hadn’t got him interested, I’m sure that deal would have been changed if I had gone with someone lesser known. It was fortunate that he was my first choice and the studio’s first choice and he did want to do it.

MK: How has it been it terms of emotional obstacles? Did you ever doubt your work? Have you had the need to defend your sense of expression?

MN: You know one of the benefits of creating an independent way of expression and an independent way of raising money is that the buck stops here with me. Once I create that body of money and work, I don’t have to defend myself in front of other people. The most difficult standard for me is my own standard. Have I done what I wanted to do? That is a question I ask myself. Because I can’t blame anybody.

With Kama Sutra, I was naive about the scale of it. I was naive about how young unknown actors would deal with such a large-scale film. I knew that to make a film of Eros and eroticism was, in itself, a great challenge. All these different factors really contributed toward making this film a very difficult one to make, and, sure, I would have a number of struggles with myself along the way, definitely. [In retrospect,] I feel the film is masterfully realized in certain dimensions, which pleases me. In other important dimensions it did not exemplify what I intended it to.

That is a very deep sort of private loneliness, when you realize you busted your butt  for a year, two years, struggled, and the end result is only 60 percent. Because movies are such public expressions, they get out to millions of people—that is the nature of the craft. So, your work is judged and you have to face it. That is part of the humility and the fire of doing what we do.

MK: The Perez Family. I know there was a whole lot of controversy surrounding that film. How did you interpret the response you received from the Latin community?

MN: I understand the response because I am often on that side of the game, in the sense that all my films are testimonies to expanding the net for Asian actors or African actors—or whatever I am doing. I know what I went through to find the right actor for the film. If “X” can play that role, whether her last name is Perez or Tomei, I would hire the person. As a filmmaker and director I have to respond to my own intuition about an actor when I see one. That’s what I did, and I stand by that.

MK: Of all the work you have done, have you ever felt that a work was 100 percent what you expected?

MN: I would say that, only now ten years later, about Salaam Bombay.

MK: Do you feel that mainstream decision makers respect and support your work?

MN: I feel like as long as I can do what I want to do, I must be respected. That must be what comes with respect. Really, I work for my own fire. It’s nice that people might respect that or not respect that, but eventually and finally, it’s not whether you are allowed, but whether you create the circumstance by which you can create your own fire that counts.

MK: Do you feel the film making experience is different for women?

MN: I’ve never been a man. I only have my experience and I just think women are amazing creatures. We are at once generals and mothers. That in itself is a formula for directors.

MK: What inspires you to direct?

MN: One, because I think I have something to say and two, I love the plasticity of cinema. I love that I can use the music I love, the color I love, the story I love, the gesture I love, to create a world that [becomes] that mysterious thing called cinema. I also feel like if I don’t tell stories about my part of the world, not many people are going to.

Moikgantsi Kgama is an independent film promoter and exhibitor residing in Brooklyn, New York. Her monthly film exhibition, imagenation, features shorts by filmmakers of the African diaspora.