The Groundbreaking Comedy That’s Finally Coming to the Criterion Collection
It’s been 27 years since Cheryl Dunye released her first full-length feature, The Watermelon Woman, an incisive and side-splitting comedy about Black film history, queer friendship, interracial relationships, and so much more.
Like many younger people—the film is as old as I am—I discovered Dunye’s film (or “Dunyementary,” as she calls it) through Letterboxd entries and streaming websites like Kanopy and Criterion Channel years after its debut at the 1996 Berlin International Film Festival. Despite an initially warm reception (aside from some predictable conservative backlash) and screenings at a handful of subsequent festivals, distributors weren’t too enthusiastic about The Watermelon Woman. The film was ultimately released by the small distribution company First Run Features in 1997, but like many 20th-century independent Black films, it became a hidden, underappreciated gem.
Thanks to Film Twitter, continued screenings, and other art forums in the intervening years, however, The Watermelon Woman has come to be heralded as a seminal piece of Black, queer cinema. Over the past five years, the film was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art and preserved by the National Film Registry. And now, fans of the cult classic can purchase a special edition, director-approved Criterion Blu-Ray.