On International Women's Day, Get To Know Professor Cheryl Dunye

HOODLINE (SAN FRANCISCO) -- Dunye, a professor at SF State, is the writer and director of “The Watermelon Woman” (1996), the first feature film directed by a black lesbian. Made on a tiny $300,000 budget, Dunye’s film explores issues of race, sexuality, and how black women were marginalized in the glory days of old Hollywood.  “It’s different for black lesbians,” Dunye told us last year, as the film celebrated its 20th anniversary. “It is a space where a part of your identity can feel reclaimed, and I think that’s what ‘The Watermelon Woman’ really talks about, this reclamation of the pluralities that we hold in our identity.”