Trula Hoosier Movies
At the turn of the century, West African slaves were brought to a small island near South Carolina to labor in the indigo trade. Isolated in the swampy atmosphere, the Gullah community was built based on ancient Yoruba traditions. They spoke in a distinct dialect, a combination of English and West African languages. This unique community is explored in Julie Dash's debut feature Daughters of the Dust, a costume drama about the Peazant family, a fictional group of Gullah natives living on Ido Landing. The secluded family experiences conflicts surrounding religion, industrialization, and tradition. The mystical matriarch Nana (Cora Lee Day) holds true to the beliefs of their anscestors, while Haagar (Kaycee Moore) can't wait to move away. Yellow Mary (Barbara O) returns from a life as a prostitute in Cuba with her girlfriend, and gets morally attacked by the reformed Christian Viola (Cheryl Lynn Bruce). Meanwhile, indifferent Eula (Alva Rogers) is pregnant with a baby that may or may not be the result of a rape. While the story doesn't attempt to follow a standard Eurocentric narrative, the plot revolves around a picnic on the shore in honor of the family members who chose to move to the prosperity of the north. The narrator is a spirit called the Unborn Child, who appears sometimes as a rambunctious little girl. A photographer accompanies the group to capture the events on film. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alva Rogers, Barbara O, (more)
- 1989
- R
African-American mime artist Charles Lane directed and starred in this ultra-low-budget film. Lane plays a Chaplinesque homeless individual with a talent for sidewalk chalk art, who finds himself caring for an abandoned baby. The child's father has been killed in a robbery, so Lane begins a long, lonely search for the kid's next of kin. What little dialogue there is comes from the mouths of the multitude of oddball characters with whom Lane comes in contact while he roams the streets of New York. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Lane, Nicole Alysia, (more)
- 1988
If wealthy men keep giving her the luxurious lifestyle that she has grown accustomed to, Alexa will give them any pleasures of the flesh that they care to experience. But she has to come to grips with her true feelings about her ways when she agrees to let playwright Tony explore the depths of her mind for a play he's writing. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christine Moore, Kirk Baily, (more)
- 1987
It is never clear whether Frigyes is indifferent or just confused when, shortly after emigrating to New York City from Hungary, he leaves his family for the pleasures and gratifications of being a street bum. But as time goes by, it is clear that, if he wasn't confused to start with, he is now. A series of adventures with other drifters reach a dramatic conclusion when some thugs murder one of them, but Frigyes himself is rescued by his father-in-law. Despite the fact that his in-law is fresh off the boat, as it were, he is somehow able to track down the by-now stunned and hapless Frigyes amid the endless streets and avenues of the Big Apple. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andor Lukats, Trula Hoosier, (more)
