Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification
Made in collaboration with performer Yolanda Vidato, Water Ritual #1 examines Black women’s ongoing struggle for spiritual and psychological space through improvisational, symbolic acts. Shot in 16mm black-and-white, the film was made in an area of Watts that had been cleared to make way for the I-105 freeway, but ultimately abandoned. Though the film is set in contemporary L.A., at first sight, Milanda and her environs (burnt-out houses overgrown with weeds) might seem to be located in Africa or the Caribbean, or at some time in the past. Structured as an Africanist ritual for Barbara McCullough’s “participant-viewers,” the film addresses how conditions of poverty, exploitation and anger render the Los Angeles landscape not as the fabled promised land for Black migrants, but as both cause and emblem of Black desolation. (Jacqueline Stewart)
Release Date
January 1, 1979Runtime
6 minDirected by
Barbara McCulloughLanguage
EnglishBudget
$0Revenue
$0Status
ReleasedCast
Images
Similar movies
Abducted
September 3, 2013The Road Within
October 24, 2014Two-Bit Waltz
October 24, 2014McFarland, USA
February 20, 2015The Calling
April 23, 2010The Edge of Dreaming
November 12, 2010The Honour of the House
October 8, 1999The Lost World of Mr. Hardy
May 17, 2009Nose and Tina
January 1, 1980The Secret Life of Words
December 15, 2005Lily Tomlin
June 14, 1987Farmer/Veteran
April 15, 2016Caprichosos de San Telmo
September 15, 2011Pompeya
July 5, 2012Living Out Loud
May 2, 2009The Kiss of the Tiger
September 29, 1988Warning Labels
April 18, 2015Cherith
December 1, 1988The Forsaken
October 9, 2015The Wonderful
November 19, 2013