Heineken Affinity Award Profile: Cheryl Dunye

Read all the profiles so far. An initiative through our Tribeca All Access® program, the Affinity Award celebrates emerging and established African-American filmmakers by creating further awareness and dialogue around their work. Learn more here. Along with the Affinity Award winners receiving an initial grant, you can now vote for one filmmaker to win a $20,000 cash award, which will be announced during the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. Vote here.

A native of Liberia and now residing in Oakland, California, Cheryl Dunye has been a fixture in the independent film scene since her debut The Watermelon Woman won the Teddy Bear at Berlin in 1997. She followed that with the HBO Film Stranger Inside, which won her a Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Director. Her fourth film, The Owls, was a festival hit around the world in 2010. Dunye is currently in development on (Per)mission. Described as a "filmformance," the piece illuminates the personal and political scenarios (past, present, future) of Dunye, a 40 something black butch feminist artist defining herself in a pluralist society where language and emotions conflict with her authentic visibility. Asked what she wants audiences to get out of his filmmaking, Dunye says… "For me filmmaking opens an entity of doorways, pages and places forgotten in commercial and independent storytelling. I use it to create works that incite viewers to rethink. I know this is a lofty goal but it makes for a heightened cinematic drama and portraiture and is a strategy I use for overturning proscribed human relationships."