Cheryl Dunye Selects!

September 18–November 2, 2025

Brilliant writer, director, and producer Cheryl Dunye’s carte blanche series offers viewers the opportunity to revisit some of her iconic works, as well as a fascinating selection of recent restorations and archival film prints spanning genres and themes, from B movies to biopics to Blaxploitation.

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Cheryl Dunye: The Watermelon Woman, 1996
Harry Kümel: Daughters of Darkness, 1971
Julian Schnabel: Before Night Falls, 2000
Ivan Dixon: The Spook Who Sat by the Door, 1973
Cheryl Dunye: Stranger Inside, 2001

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Upcoming
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Past
Films
Past
Events

Past Films

The Watermelon Woman
Cheryl Dunye
United States, 1996
Thursday, September 18 7 PM
Cheryl Dunye and Leigh Raiford in Conversation
Almost thirty—and still turning heads—Cheryl Dunye’s love letter to Black lesbian history and its legacy proves that DIY cinema can rewrite the archive with wit, charm, and a camcorder.
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Women’s Prison
Lewis Seiler
United States, 1955
Sunday, September 21 7 PM
“Nothing says ‘studio-era repression’ like a sadistic warden and a riot in heels. It’s camp, it’s cruel, and it cracks open a space for the queer and feminist subtext I live for” (Cheryl Dunye).
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Stranger Inside
Cheryl Dunye
United States, 2001
Free admission. Tickets available at the admissions desk beginning at 6 PM.
Friday, September 26 7 PM
Cheryl Dunye and Lisa Armstrong in Conversation
Yolanda Ross stars as Treasure, a tough, young butch, in this terrific, rarely seen women’s prison drama, in which Chery Dunye centers the experiences of Black queer women behind bars.
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Cheryl Dunye’s Short Work
Wednesday, October 15 7 PM
Cheryl Dunye and Allegra Madsen in Conversation
Cheryl Dunye’s fantastic short films chart the evolution of her voice: ”DIY, Black, queer, and always a little bit disruptive. These shorts are where I found my vision and learned to bend form to tell truths that didn’t yet have a genre.”
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The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Ivan Dixon
United States, 1973
Restored 35mm Archival Print
Saturday, October 18 7 PM
Introduced by Michael Mark Cohen; Greg Bridges and Nomathandé Dixon in Conversation
Ivan Dixon’s chronicle of the CIA’s first Black agent turned freedom fighter on the streets of Chicago is “guerrilla cinema at its finest—radical, unapologetic, and still dangerous. It lit the match for a conversation on resistance that we’re still having today” (Cheryl Dunye).
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Daughters of Darkness
Harry Kümel
Belgium, France, West Germany, 1971
Friday, October 24 7 PM
With Delphine Seyrig as the ageless Hungarian Countess Báthory checked into an isolated seaside hotel in the offseason, Harry Kümel’s “fairy tale for adults” is elegant, erotic, and dripping in queer vampire iconography.
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The Werewolf of Washington
Milton Moses Ginsberg
United States, 1973
BAMPFA Collection
Sunday, October 26 7 PM
“Because sometimes you need a little Halloween camp to take a bite out of what’s happening in this country. It’s satire with fangs—and the horror feels a little too familiar” (Cheryl Dunye).
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Before Night Falls
Julian Schnabel
United States, 2000
Sunday, November 2 7 PM
Cheryl Dunye and Damon Young in Conversation
A sweeping cinematic portrait of the Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas that “honor(s) queer memory with lyrical, defiant beauty” (Cheryl Dunye).
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Cheryl Dunye Selects!

September 18–November 2, 2025

Cheryl Dunye has been writing, directing, teaching, and producing movies for over three decades. This carte blanche series offers viewers the opportunity to see an assortment of movies she admires and to revisit her iconic early works. The lineup commences with Dunye’s genre-expanding, archive-inventing screwball comedy The Watermelon Woman and includes her innovative short films, all essential to the Queer New Wave cinema of the 1990s. Combining documentary techniques, vivid screenwriting, excellent performances (including by Dunye herself), humor, and pathos, these “Dunyementaries” explore Black and lesbian identities, desire, and relationships. Dunye will also present her compelling sophomore feature, Stranger Inside, recently presented as part of Jenni Olson’s Masc II series. The suspenseful prison drama is constructed around a Black woman’s quest for family and identity.

Dunye’s diverse selections include Lewis Seiler’s 1955 Women’s Prison—featuring Ida Lupino as a stylish and cruel prison warden—which she admires for “cracking open a space for queer and feminist subtext,” and actor/director Ivan Dixon’s chronicle of a Black CIA agent turned urban freedom fighter, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, for “starting a conversation about resistance that continues today.” Pre-Halloween treats include Milton Moses Ginsberg’s biting Nixon-era satire, The Werewolf of Washington—with Dean Stockwell as an afflicted presidential press attaché—and Harry Kümel’s Daughters of Darkness, starring Delphine Seyrig as an elegant, ageless countess with a taste for blood and beautiful young women. Completing the series, Julien Schnabel’s depiction of the life of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls, is lauded by Dunye for honoring “queer memory with lyrical, defiant beauty.”

—Kate MacKay, Film Curator

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Film Series Sponsor: Penelope Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser

Thanks to David Szulkin, Blue Underground; Brian Belovarac, Janus Films; George Schmalz, Kino Lorber; Lynanne Schweighofer, Library of Congress; Doris Nomathandé Dixon, Estates of Ivan Dixon and Sam Greenlee; Chris Chouinard, Park Circus; David Jennings, Finley Padgett, Sony Pictures; and Alyssa DeMuri, Swank Motion Pictures.