Cheryl Dunye

CTL-E-6029 · Person · artist · 1966–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07254 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6029.

Cheryl Dunye (born May 13, 1966, Monrovia, Liberia) is a Liberian American filmmaker, director, and actor raised in Philadelphia and based in Oakland, California. She earned a B.A. in Film and Media Arts at Temple University in 1990 and an M.A. at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts, and first made short experimental works that blended documentary and fiction, a form she called the 'dunyementary.' Her debut feature, The Watermelon Woman (1996), in which she plays a Black lesbian filmmaker researching an erased 1930s actress, made her the first out Black lesbian to direct a narrative feature film. The film won the Teddy Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and entered the National Film Registry in 2021. Dunye has since directed independent features including the HBO film Stranger Inside and many television episodes, and co-founded the Oakland production company Jingletown Films.

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 3 — 747 Program, Wave 10; third Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Cheryl Dunye entity in the live graph at 3,683 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-6029 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — Scan Tail Wave 2 packet ordered reserve, position 24 of 25 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #831). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black queer cinema and independent film history; a first-of-its-kind feature with National Film Registry standing. Vital status: LIVING — born May 13, 1966; active and appearing publicly in 2026 (SFPL event listing, October 2026). No death record exists in any source consulted. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): The Watermelon Woman production budget given as $300,000 (Britannica, opened read). National Film Registry induction 2021 (Britannica). Dunye has made over 15 films (SFPL listing, 2026). No conflicting figures encountered; none blended. MEDIA: photo HELD (Cheryl Dunye contemporary press portrait (named candidate; PHOTO-001 verification still required) named as candidate; no file-page verification in this pass); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6029-cheryl-dunye.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Non-place record; no map attaches at the entity layer.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (233 entries, checked by name); slot held.) | audio = HELD (No audiobook excerpt or author recording with a CTL rights basis was staged in this pass.)

Sources

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cheryl Dunye (published September 25, 2024; accessed 2026-10-16; article opened and read) — born May 13, 1966, Monrovia; Temple B.A. 1990 and Rutgers M.A.; The Watermelon Woman (1996) as debut feature and first-out-Black-lesbian distinction; Teddy Award; National Film Registry induction 2021; television directing; Jingletown Films — https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cheryl-Dunye (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia, Cheryl Dunye (accessed 2026-10-16) — Monrovia birth and Philadelphia upbringing; Temple and Rutgers education; Jingletown Films based in Oakland; filmography and honors — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheryl_Dunye (build store)
• San Francisco Public Library, 'Natalie Baszile in Conversation with Cheryl Dunye' event listing (October 2026; accessed 2026-10-16) — Oakland-based filmmaker; more than 15 films; Stranger Inside Independent Spirit nomination; current television directing credits — https://sfpl.org/events/2026/10/11/author-natalie-baszile-conversation-cheryl-dunye (build store)

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