https://blackgirlnerds.com/cheryl-dunye-jingletown-and-making-space-for-black-queer-filmmakers/

Film and television director Cheryl Dunye has come a long way from her debut film The Watermelon Woman — the first film from an out Black lesbian — directing popular shows such as Lovecraft Country and Umbrella Academy and the development of her company Jingletown Films.

BGN was grateful to have this time with Dunye via Zoom just in time for Pride Month. 

How did the creation of Jingletown Films come to be? How has it shifted/expanded over the years?

So Jingletown initially started as a loan-out company for my work as an episodic director in 2017. My wife [Karina Hodoyan] who is also involved in the arts and media and is a college professor, decided leading up to the pandemic (and even before) [to support my] urges in trying to both start something bigger than just my loan out as well as address the lack of companies making work like mine that are for queer people of color and helping people in that way. In particular, women of color. It’s a commitment to a cause we both share about makers of narrative work in the Bay Area. It’s the perfect place to really launch this moment. 

Currently, we are now involved with Boots Riley and other filmmakers in the Bay Area. In particular, Oakland. We are launching an organization called Cinemama, and it’s for Bay Area filmmakers trying to get narrative work off the ground. People can gather, hang out. We just had one event, and are hosting the next event in another week or so [at the time of this interview; May 30, 2023]. That’s what we do publicly.

For myself, it’s option work. We’re promoting that as a company now. The [Writer’s Guild of America] strike is around, so we can’t really do much. But we are definitely negotiating some of the option material, developing that with two or three companies in Hollywood. 

Thank you for the way that you keep the people and community members who matter to you close to you. 

You’re welcome. And it’s so exciting that we have everybody right now in the Bay Area — people to gather together and actually have an impact on creating, kicking up dust, and kicking it aside so folks like us can be seen and heard and create work. 

Do you have any favorite Black queer collaborators you’d like to name?

A wonderful one I’d like to highlight right now in this conversation is a young maker named Martine Syms. Martine made this film called The African Desperate. The film is about a young Black woman in grad school trying to graduate, and it’s done in that cinema verite style with lots of innovations and playing with form. 

The Watermelon Woman is being relaunched by Criterion, which is very exciting. In that promotion [Criterion] asked, “Who would you like to have a conversation with?” I said Martine. I want to talk about this intergenerational work as queer folks of color trying to change form, change media. That’s one person I have my eyes out for, putting energy into. 

They also have their foot in the art world. They just won a Guggenheim like I did! I love watching their work and having the chance to promote it on a big scale; but they’re also just doing it on their own.

What are you seeing more of in film since The Watermelon Woman, especially as you’re talking about intergenerational collaborations? What do you see is still missing in film?

I feel like what’s still happening is people are digging into finding fresh new voices. They strike upon me sometimes and they strike upon others. I think storytelling in narrative film has become so commercialized and standardized, and you have to fit into this box to make it to the streaming. You have to have a big idea, a big Sundance idea. 

But I do see people looking for interesting work, then taking it and making it their own. It’s an encouraging thing to see people playing with form and using all of their identities as they speak from their work. I also see people popping out of the box that’s solely for Hollywood and finding new places to screen their work and collaborate. The pandemic allowed us to reach other collaborators globally even though we weren’t connected physically. 

What is an approach in your directing that has surprised you over the years? Especially when it comes to film versus television. What had you not considered before or you initially thought, “I would never do this,” and you ended up doing it?

What I never thought I would be doing that episodic has allowed me to do, until I started doing it a lot, is action. I’m able to do a lot of action and fights. And dance! I’m working a lot with stunt coordinators and creating interesting groovy scenes, dropping in on a scene with a fight, like in The Rookie: Feds. Niecy Nash is a good person I collaborate with on the show. 

Another genre I never thought I would have an easy fit with was gore or body horror. So my episode of Lovecraft Country Episode 5, I knew exactly how to piece it [snaps] all [snaps] together [snaps]. I call it Reese’s Pieces — make something whole that gives you an emotion or a theory, as many pieces as you can grab, then you’ll have more power in the edit. 

What do you do to nourish yourself when you’re not working?

It’s important to ask how we free the mind. I connect with people, which I also do when I am working. But it’s important to disconnect too. What I do, when I come back straight from a show, is tend to my garden. I put my hand in soil and plant. I’m in my garden in a way where I am creative in another modality. This includes volunteering too.

I think it’s also important to nourish your other modalities outside of cinema. You need a full course of you in every experience to tell stories, to be a good director and communicator. Make sure you tap into all the aspects of who you are or could be before you lay down anything that you want to call creative. 

What do you like to plant in your garden? Where do you volunteer?

Right now, I’m really trying to nourish these broccoli seeds! They’re coming along, and that’s on the veggie side. 

In the neighborhood we live in, we do a lot of clippings when we’re walking our dogs. I break them off and try to make them grow.

I love to volunteer for our block’s group watch. So I do my service to walk the block, communicate, and show up at meetings so I feel like I’m a part of my community. It’s my own community, and I’m invested in it. 

**This interview has been edited for time and clarity.