Diary of an African Nun with Hester Street

Diary of an African Nun with Hester Street

Diary of an African Nun
Based on a short story by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Alice Walker, Julie Dash’s (b. 1952) student film, made while attending UCLA’s MFA program during the groundbreaking L.A. Rebellion period—which saw a massive surge in films made by Black students at the university—explores the interior, spiritual life of a young Black nun in Uganda as she interrogates her devotion to Catholicism.

Hester Street
Set in the Jewish community of Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1896, Joan Micklin Silver’s (1935–2020) debut feature is told through Eastern European immigrant Gitl (Carol Kane) as she grapples with maintaining her personal agency within the traditions of her Jewish faith. For Silver, a daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, Hester Street was a personal story, which she adapted herself from Abraham Cahan’s novella Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto. A universal narrative about acceptance and identity, Hester Street garnered Kane an Oscar nomination for her performance, and the film was added to the National Film Registry in 2011.

Diary of an African Nun
DIRECTED BY: Julie Dash. WITH: Barbara O. Jones, Barbara Young, Makimi Price, Ron Flagge. 1977. 13 min. USA. B&W. 16mm.
Hester Street
DIRECTED/WRITTEN BY: Joan Micklin Silver. WITH: Steven Keats, Carol Kane, Mel Howard, Dorrie Kavanaug. 1975. 90 min. USA. B&W. Yiddish, English. 4K DCP. Hester Street was restored in 4K from the original 35mm negative by Cohen Film Collection at DuArt Media Services in New York. Color grading was approved by Marisa Silver.
Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation. 
Theater accessibility accommodations available upon request. Learn more about our accessibility initiatives.

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