Award-winning filmmaker Julie Dash encourages students at lecture

Filmmaker Julie Dash gave a lecture Wednesday in the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center about her inspiring life to an overflowing crowd of students, professors and members of the Bloomington community.\nDash, whose film “The Rosa Parks Story” was screened Thursday night, was the first African-American woman to produce a full-length theatrical release with her 1991 movie “Daughters of the Dust.”\nTo open the lecture, Audrey McCluskey, associate professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, introduced Dash, as well as five clips of her directing achievements, which the audience previewed. \nDash first talked about growing up in the 1960s and feeling as if she had to cloak her dreams. She initially wanted to become a professional roller skater, but when people would ask about her future plans, she would tell them she wanted to be a secretary so she could stay under the radar and avoid discouragement. \nAs she grew up, she began to realize what was happening in the world around her. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous speech, John F. Kennedy was assassinated and Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. She said she soon realized that her dream of being a roller skater was no longer as interesting. It was after seeing black television and film actors being portrayed as complex, sexy characters that she realized something was changing within her. In 1969, she attended a free after-school program on cinematography at the Studio Museum of Harlem and had her first experiences with foreign films and using cameras.\n“I was from the hood; we were very resistant to things we didn’t know,” she said. \nDash went on to receive a master’s degree from UCLA and was a fellow at the American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film Studies. \n“I love difficult; I love different. It’s important to stretch yourself,” she advised to aspiring filmmakers. \nToward the end of the lecture, Dash took questions from the audience and offered advice to students. \nFreshman Mary Smith, who is interested in being a filmmaker, said she came to the event because she finds Dash inspiring. \n“This was a great event; it was a good turnout. The questions were crisp and her responses were even more crisp,” Smith said. “She is really a very articulate spokesperson for the whole panorama of African-Americans and particularly women.” \nDash said she is one of the few directors who does not fall to the cliche scripts of the current media, which she attributes to the amount of time she puts into her work. \n“I don’t work as much as a lot of other directors, so I have more time to focus,” she said. \nThe lecture was sponsored by IU Libraries in order to focus on the month-long celebration of archives and special collections at IU. \n“This year is the second year in what we hope will be an annual celebration for archives,” said Patricia Steele, dean of libraries. “We talked about a number of filmmakers, and we decided that Julie Dash would bridge the gap of so many generations and ethnic groups, and I feel that the inspiration that she gave and the response that we had has been absolutely outstanding.”