Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification poster

Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification

3.8(4)19796m1

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)

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Status
Released
Budget
—
Box office
—
Language
English
  • woman director

Top billed cast

Behind the camera

Produced in

United States of America

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Release dates

  • United StatesUS

    • Theatrical1 Jan 1979

Frequently asked questions

Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification was released on 1 January 1979.

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