Daughters of the Dust

Daughters of the Dust is a 1991 independent film, the first feature film directed by an African-American woman distributed theatrically in the United States. Set in 1902, it tells the story of three generations of Gullah women on Saint Helena Island as they prepare to migrate off the island, out of the Southern United States, and into the North. I watched it because it is on the Sight and Sound best films list. It's on Tubi.

trailer:

Roger Ebert opens a positive review with this:

a tone poem of old memories, a family album in which all of the pictures are taken on the same day. It tells the story of a family of African-Americans who have lived for many years on a Southern offshore island, and of how they come together one day in 1902 to celebrate their ancestors before some of them leave for the North. The film is narrated by a child not yet born, and ancestors already dead also seem to be as present as the living.

The film doesn't tell a story in any conventional sense. It tells of feelings.

The Guardian gives it a 5 out of 5 stars and calls it "a mysterious, fabular and sometimes dreamlike film with its own theatrical poise." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics consensus score of 94%.