Cheryl Dunye Taking ‘Sci-Fi Trans Erotic Thriller’ ‘Black Is Blue’ to European Markets to Escape U.S. Gatekeepers
Thirteen years after “Mummy Is Coming,” American filmmaker Cheryl Dunye (“The Watermelon Woman”) is gearing up to produce a new feature film with “Black Is Blue” through her production company Jingletown Films. The film, loosely based on her eponymous 2014 short, is one of the projects selected at this year’s CineMart, the co-production market of the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Speaking with Variety at the festival, Dunye says the idea for the “sci-fi trans erotic thriller” first came to her during the early days of the pandemic when she began rewatching classic films and thinking of her love for film noir, particularly Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard.”
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The film is set to chronicle the erotic tale of a Black trans couple brought together by AI technology: Blue, a 40-something Black trans woman who was once a successful tech executive for a multinational in control of the world’s largest DNA database, and Black, a less successful 30-something trans man of color trying to work as an AI programmer.
“Black Is Blue,” the short film, was a project Dunye developed when she moved from L.A. to the Bay Area. “It was about looking at my new community and I was seeing many people falling to the side of the tech world because of who they were, their gender, sexuality…. When the short came out, people kept asking me where was the feature, so I sat down with that and picked it back up years later when COVID happened,” she says.
“‘Sunset Boulevard’ makes a commentary about Hollywood and I started thinking about how to make a similar commentary about what was going on in the Bay Area with diverse people involved in tech as security and those serving the meals and whatnot while those who had jobs inside programming were white,” adds the director. “I put all these ideas into a pot, stirred it up with my desire to make a dystopian sci-fi, and came up with ‘Black Is Blue.’”
On the timeliness of the film’s subjects — both in its commentary on AI and its investigation of the marginalization of trans people at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump is rolling back transgender protections and ending DEI programs — Dunye says that she wrote the project during the first Trump presidency and “shopped it around” with little success but now sees the relevancy of her story increase every single day.
“I pitched it to the indie Hollywood studios like your A24s, all the regular indie suspects when I met with folks to try finding funding and sponsorship and nobody wanted it,” she says. “They were like, ‘Trans tech?! What?’ People just tucked it away but now… Well, it’s upon us.”
After failing to get funding for the film in the U.S., Dunye dedicated herself to directing episodic work such as Netflix’s “The Umbrella Academy” and “Bridgerton.” As the desire to make “Black Is Blue” grew stronger, the director decided to look for opportunities in Europe, where she felt the environment to get a project like it off the ground was more propitious. She is landing at CineMart looking for co-producers, especially in France and Greece, and international collaborators who can support the project’s VFX needs in post-production.
“People didn’t want it in the States per se and I have real fans and beloved producers and friends here in the Netherlands as well as in Berlin, where I won the Teddy 30 years ago,” she says. One such friend is the new head of IFFR Pro Marten Rabarts, who Dunye worked with during his tenure as artistic director of the Binger Filmlab, an Amsterdam-based post-academic training facility for film professionals.
“I didn’t know Marten was the new head of Pro when I applied but it felt like synergy, like me coming back to my voice and the younger Cheryl and the courage I had when I made ‘The Watermelon Woman.’ It felt like all was lining up.”
Speaking on “The Watermelon Woman,” widely considered to be the first-ever feature directed by a Black lesbian filmmaker, Dunye says that, although it’s been almost 30 years since the film’s release, she doesn’t “know how many more filmmakers who look like me have been birthed in the world.”
“I would say Mati Diop and a few others but not many more women of color directors who can strike a budget and make things happen,” continues the director. “I think of Gina Prince-Bythewood and ‘The Woman King’ but Gina is a beloved person within the system — I don’t know how many people can do it outside of the system. You see it more in European cinema than in the States.”
“In the U.S., you do not see the support, the network, and the agencies to nurture filmmakers like us. There is a lot of gatekeeping around the practice. That’s why I’m stepping outside of that world and into the co-production model to do this project,” she concludes.
On top of working on “Black Is Blue,” which is in development intending to go into pre-production in the first trimester of 2026, Dunye is also in the early stages of developing a project with Killer Films producer Christine Vachon. Although the director can’t say much about their venture yet, she says it is a project she has “dreamed of making since before shooting ‘The Watermelon Woman.’”
As for Rotterdam, the American director is looking forward to a conversation event with Argentinian filmmaker Albertina Carri as part of the festival’s Tiger Talks program. A film professor, Dunye is also thrilled about having bumped into two former students with films at the festival: “It feels good to know that what I do in the world has an effect on people. When I see that I think: ‘Okay, all right. I’m not too old, I can keep on going.”
“Black Is Blue” is produced by Dunye’s Jingletown Films in co-production with Jürgen Brüning Filmproduktion, Sima Films, Pinch Me Films and Chrysalis Productions.
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