The Watermelon Woman

The Watermelon Woman

Director: Cheryl Dunye
Country: USA

1996 | 84 min. | English
Subtitles: German
FSK | Nicht geprüft / No clearance

Cast_ Cheryl Dunye, Guinevere Turner, Valarie Walker, Lisa Marie Bronson, Cheryl Clarke Screenplay_ Cheryl Dunye Camera_ Michelle Crenshaw Producer_ Barry Swimar, Alexandra Juhasz Rights_ The Film Collaborative

A queer cult film. Self-reflexive and surprising, Cheryl Dunye’s film speaks of identity and the need for self-empowerment.

Black lesbian Cheryl (Cheryl Dunye) works in a video store in Philadelphia. In her free time, she researches Black actresses, most of whom remained nameless in early Hollywood cinema. Cheryl is particularly fascinated by one actress who was given the racist nickname of the Watermelon Woman. She tries to find out the woman’s true identity and tell her story.

With this milestone of queer US cinema, Cheryl Dunye confronts the invisibility and absence of Black and queer people in American film history. One of the discoveries of this year’s retrospective!

Director

Cheryl Dunye, born in 1966, is an American filmmaker and producer whose films consistently address issues of race, gender and sexuality. In addition to her feature films, she has also directed series such as ›Dear White People‹ (2019) and ›Lovecraft Country‹ (2020).

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