Cheryl Dunye

Cheryl DUNYE (1966, Liberia) grew up in Philadelphia, where she graduated from Temple University before attending Mason Gross School of Art in New Jersey. Her work often revolves around topics of race, sexuality and gender. She became known for her unique style of filmmaking, which mixes documentary and fiction. She calls films in this style ‘dunyementaries’. She released a number of short films before directing her first feature The Watermelon Woman (1995). The film premiered at the Berlinale, where it won the Teddy Award. Her next work was television film Stranger Inside (2001), which premiered on HBO and portrays the life of African-American lesbians in prison. The film won several awards. The following year, she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by Girlfriends magazine. In 2004, she wrote the comedy My Baby’s Daddy. The Owls (2010) and Mommy Is Coming (2012) both premiered in Berlin, with the latter being nominated for a Teddy Award. In 2013, she took part in the omnibus film Valencia: The Movie/s, an adaptation of Michelle Tea’s 2000 memoir Valencia. In recent years, she has directed episodes for numerous TV shows, including Queen Sugar (2017-2019), Dear White People (2019) and Lovecraft Country (2020).