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Eloyce Gist

Gender:

Female

Films:

Hell Bound Train (1933)


Biographical Notes:

Married to fellow African American James Gist who she filmed Hell Bound Train with, among other amateur films. According to the Women Film Pioneers project, Gist was a co-director, co-producer, screenwriter and film editor. Eloyce was of the Bahá’í faith while her husband was a Christian evangelical. The couple had a goal of producing entertaining films with strong moral and spiritual mission. Both worked together to find audiences in the African American community and churches, ran low budgets with non-professional actors and made 16mm films to accompany religious services. Tepperman (2014) notes that all their films featured religious parables, featured all-black casts and some films were sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Bibliographic Resources:

Morgan, Kyna. "Eloyce King Patrick Gist." In Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project. Center for Digital Research and Scholarship. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2013.
For a discussion of the Gists and Amateur Relgious filmmaking see: Tepperman, Charles. Amateur Cinema: The Rise of North American Moviemaking, 1923-1960. University of California Press, 2014.