Books, Films, News, Women Directors, Women Writers

Cheryl Dunye to Write and Direct Adaptation of “The Wonder of All Things”

Dunye: TEDDY AWARD/ YouTube

The groundbreaking writer-director of “The Watermelon Woman” has a new project in the works. Cheryl Dunye will write and direct female-led supernatural story “The Wonder of All Things” for Lionsgate, Deadline reports. Based on a 2014 novel by Jason Mott (“The Returned”), the story centers on Ava, a 14-year-old who “discovers her healing powers after saving the life of her friend Wash following a plane disaster at an air show.”

Best known for 1996 LGBTQ story “The Watermelon Woman” — which made her the first black lesbian to direct a feature — Dunye’s recent credits include episodes of “The Fosters,” “Claws,” and “Queen Sugar.” “Valencia,” “Mommy Is Coming,” and “The Owls” are among her feature films. She’s currently developing a feature version of her short film “Black Is Blue.”

“The Watermelon Woman” won the Teddy Award at the Berlinale, and was digitally restored and re-released in 2016 in honor of its 20th anniversary. The pic centers on Cheryl (Dunye), a young, lesbian black woman who pays her bills as a video store clerk and by filming professional home videos. What she’d really like to do is make films, and she has one particular project in mind. After watching a film titled “Plantation Memories” with a black actress credited as “The Watermelon Woman,” Cheryl decides to find out more about the mysterious woman by making a documentary about her.

Dunye has described the film as proof of “what you can do when you’re invisible.” As for its enduring legacy, she thinks it lives on because “people still don’t know what a black queer person looks like, unless it’s a farcical, drag queeny, commercial way. That’s not all that we are,” she said. “We’re a varied, beautiful ‘rainbow’ of identities.”

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