THE OBENSON REPORT

Covering Cinema From All Across The African Diaspora

DVD Spotlight - Early Works of Cheryl Dunye



She's easily one of the most provocative, humorous and important filmmakers of our time, often using a sharply witty and reflexive lens, in a mixture of entertaining narrative and documentary techniques, to deconstruct and uproot social and cultural norms.


Her acclaimed first feature,
The Watermelon Woman (1996), introduced Cheryl Dunye to wider audiences. But, until now, little attention has been given to those films she created before her breakthrough.

Presented here for the first time on DVD are the films that started it all - the first chapter of the Cheryl Dunye oeuvre.


Six films are included.
Greetings From Africa: Cheryl, playing herself, humorously experiences the mysteries of lesbian dating in the 90s; The Potluck And The Passion: Sparks fly as racial, sexual and social politics intermingle at a lesbian potluck; An Untitled Portrait: Dunye's relationship with her brother is examined in this mixture of appropriated film footage, super 8mm home movies & Dunye's special brand of humor. Vanilla Sex: Is it who you do, or what you do?; She Don't Fade: A self-reflexive look at the sexuality of a young black lesbian; and Janine: The story of a black lesbian's relationship with a white, upper middle class high school girl.

The DVD will be released this Tuesday, December 9th. However, you can preorder your copy via Amazon.com, right now!

I have.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous said...
     

    not that i'm hating but what's up with all the lesbian black female filmmakers. nicole ari parker got some big titties that i saw in ..."two girls in love" lol
    you know who i wonder about sinclair from living single. hmmmmm
    just watched this "brooklynns bridge to jordan" wasn't much too it. it was well shot and had good acting. bah i need more inspiration like this a man named pearl trailer. hahaha

  2. The Obenson Report said...
     

    "What's up with all the lesbian filmmakers?"

    Why - do you feel threatened?

  3. Anonymous said...
     

    lol
    i do. no i am just shocked that most of the one's i know about are lesbian. my opponent doesn't exist...
    i am proud of all my black filmmakers and good filmmakers period

  4. The Obenson Report said...
     

    I think we might be experiencing a surge in filmmaking from LGBT filmmakers. I could be wrong about that, because, I only recently started paying attention to art created by LGBT artists; and I'm likely just scratching the proverbial surface.

    The filmmakers I've posted about on this blog are those who, for one reason or another, have achieved some semi-mainstream success, or have elevated themselves above their counterparts, by getting their films into prominent film festivals, making easier for people like me to spot them, because I don't have to look that deeply to find them.

    One of my goals for this blog and my podcast is to showcase the voices of the under-represented and marginalized. And the African America LGBT group mos def falls under that umbrella.

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