The Watermelon Woman
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30th Anniversary Presented with Queer Screen
Overview
Cheryl Dunye stars as Cheryl, a video-store clerk and aspiring filmmaker who becomes fascinated by the forgotten Black actresses of 1930s Hollywood. Her search for the elusive “Watermelon Woman,” an actress whose name and history have all but disappeared, draws Cheryl into a playful investigation of the past while mirroring her own experiences of love, identity and belonging as she begins a relationship with a white woman, played by Guinevere Turner (writer of American Psycho).
“The hottest dyke sex scene ever recorded on celluloid”
“It’s an endlessly revealing film, with the power to surprise and invigorate audiences who are seeing it again or for the first time”
Why You Should See This Film
Winner of the 1996 Teddy Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Berlinale, The Watermelon Woman celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Cheryl Dunye’s groundbreaking feature debut remains a landmark of Black lesbian cinema and New Queer Cinema, making cinematic history as the first American feature directed by a Black lesbian.
First Films
First Films, founded in 2022, is a film festival dedicated to introducing Sydney audiences to new daring debut films never screened in Sydney before. Beginning in 2024, the festival also started showcasing significant retrospective debuts. First Films aims to challenge, inspire, and entertain. Now celebrating its fifth edition, First Films will take place in 2026, October 27th to November 1st at Golden Age Cinema & Bar and Sydney Opera House.
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