- 7 months ago
Queen Collective Panel with Queen Latifah
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00hey essence family it's joy marie mckenzie essence is senior entertainment editor and i have a real
00:11treat for creatives for filmmakers documentarians or just point anybody who loves to see black
00:17women's stories on screen what is it like to be a creative during these times it's very trying
00:24times and i have complete royalty in the building uh she definitely needs no introduction but i'm
00:32gonna be professional and introduce her anyway uh so uh we have she's a critically acclaimed and
00:39award-winning musician actor label president author and entrepreneur and i just have to say a point of
00:47personal privilege her character on living single khadijah james was one of the reasons why i wanted
00:53to be a journalist and a woman boss in journalism i'm sure shout out to living single uh that's not
00:59in the notes i just had to say that uh she's the first hip-hop artist to be crowned with a star on
01:04the hollywood walk of fame queen latifah if you haven't figured out who i'm talking about has had
01:09immeasurable success in music and acting she's got a grammy emmy golden global awards for her work
01:15and is oscar nominated for her role in chicago hey queen i'm exhausted after that introduction
01:21you've done it all hey my girl she was khadijah yana queen boom you know what i mean i feel like
01:30dad i've been working hard huh all of that yes we appreciate your work um it's nice to see you just
01:39how are you during these times before we get started um i'm good i'm good i'm doing much better than
01:46others you know i'm alive and so uh i have breath in my lungs and so i'm doing much better than some
01:53during this time and so i kind of you know whenever i start to get blue about how crazy things are or how
02:00um tough things are i just have to remember i'm blessed you know what i mean and i get very grateful
02:06and i'm grateful for the help of my family and and the fact that i have a roof over my head and food on
02:11you know on the stove and in the fridge and i just get thankful for basic things you know what i mean
02:18and just how i can you know be a help to my family and friends and and others of course you know so
02:24it's just you know i just have to meditate in the morning because my dreams are crazy and um my you
02:32know your brain is processing so much through this time so i just kind of have to take a pause in the
02:37morning when i wake up and breathe for a few moments and just clear and just settle myself and then
02:43we go hard again yeah to the day yeah and you have definitely not stopped working uh we'll be
02:51talking about your queen collective how you are mentoring and ushering in amazing filmmakers and
02:57films that we need to see and so i'm going to introduce uh the filmmakers that you've chosen for
03:01this year's uh selection samantha knolles is a brooklyn-based filmmaker her new york times
03:07documentary the blue line premiered i tried that in 2018 and she is one of queen collective's 2020
03:14selection she's the director of tangled roots welcome samantha thank you so much yes and you look
03:22great i love this pop of color on the lip that's my kind of
03:25um and two filmmakers who are both co-directed gloves off which is the second selection uh nadine
03:35natur and yugana opaloka uh hi ladies hi hi nadine who is the associate producer of the oscar
03:44nominated emmy winning rbg while yugana is an emmy nominated tv producer who has directed written and
03:50produced features from all over the world so welcome all of you um i want to start with queen
03:57first why did you start the queen collective for those who may not know and why were these two films
04:03gloves off and tangled roots just sort of emblematic of the stories that you thought needed to be shared
04:08well as you just introduced the both of these three of these amazing uh director producers um they're
04:16already critically acclaimed they've already been putting in work they should be directing their
04:20films they should have an opportunity to direct whatever it is that they have creatively conceived
04:26and um should be able to execute that uh with full support and um unfortunately it is not the case
04:35for many directors female directors and so i shouldn't even have to start this initiative but it's a
04:41bunch of stuff we shouldn't have to do at this point um what we did see was that there was a major
04:47disparity in the amount of women who are behind the camera's lens and uh mark pritchard who is the
04:53head of brand management for and branded content for procter and gamble did a panel together and
05:00it was a women's women's summit in new york and we both said afterwards that we have to do something to
05:05change um that disparity you know less than 10 of all commercials and movies are directed by women and so
05:12oh wow well here he is controlling billions of dollars of advertising advertising dollars and
05:17he wants to put women behind the camera because they want to see a more accurate portrayal if nothing
05:24else they want to see a more accurate accurate portrayal of women and girls in front of the camera
05:31in the media that you see and so um one of the best ways to do that is to put women behind the lens and
05:38give them the power to create and we decided to start with directors because not only would um
05:46we be able to see more of an accurate portrayal but we find that directors women directors will hire
05:53a much more diverse crew so we're trying to hit words with one stone by being able to do that and it's
06:00been the case that you know the women that you have today have been able to hire very diverse crews and
06:06execute their films in that way and hopefully give people another shot in each department to move
06:11forward in advance and and um you know that's the whole idea you know just letting it spread
06:16i love that before we learn more about these filmmakers work why don't we check out a trailer
06:21to learn to see just what they've been up to
06:35of course we can see why these stones were chosen and why these stories needed to be told samantha i
06:51want to start with tangled roots um because this story uh was birthed out of a personal uh sort of
06:58struggle with your own hair can you tell us about tangled roots and why you wanted to tell this particular
07:03story yeah um so tangled roots was really inspired by um an experience i had in high school where i was
07:11reading my um high school handbook and i realized that they discriminated against black hair um they
07:19had a rule that male students couldn't have cornrows or dreadlocks um and even though i wasn't a male
07:26student um and i had braids so the rule didn't directly affect me it still felt discriminatory it
07:33still felt like it affected me um and i was really upset by it and i didn't really have the language
07:40to articulate why it's it upset me so much at the time um but it really it really stayed with me
07:48um and then fast forward you know 10 15 years later the queen collective put out this um you know kind
07:57of like ask for films and it felt like hair discrimination was something that i could really
08:03tackle in a film um and i found uh my main character attica scott and she was this woman who was working
08:11in kentucky as its only black woman state legislator um to pass a bill that would like ban that type of
08:19hair discrimination statewide um and i was so inspired by her and i just knew that i wanted to follow her
08:26her whole journey um so yeah so that's how i kind of stumbled across the topic and the and the characters
08:35i love that because it's so important for black women to be able to express ourselves authentically in
08:40in every single space uh so that's wonderful nadine and uganda gloves off centers on this dc police
08:48officer i'm from the dmv so i was hyped already uh tell us about gloves off and why you chose this
08:55particular police officer to follow because she does so much more uh than policing um yeah we knew
09:03we just knew that when we got this opportunity that we didn't have a story in mind yet but we knew that
09:08no matter what story we told we wanted it to center around a really strong inspiring woman
09:14um and just to extend the purpose of the queen's collective as queen said not only for people
09:20behind the camera but people in front of the camera as well too so when we came across tiara's story
09:24and we found out she was the first um african-american woman to be awarded officer of the year because
09:30she's creating all these new ways to do community policing that was incredible and then we found out by
09:36night she's also an undefeated boxing champion so we were like okay we don't know where this story is
09:41gonna go yet but we think it's worth a phone call and once we talked to her and got to meet her and
09:46became friendly with her we knew that um there was something there to be told yeah i want to talk
09:53nadine this question is for you you know um this is an interesting moment in in history uh in american
10:00history and black history um we're all going through something very unique uh first there was
10:06covid that had us all anxious and in the house and then another pandemic that we've been dealing with
10:12for generations racism and racial inequity um has really come to a head i wonder like in this time
10:20of peak activism has it changed the way that you're approaching art you know um even with shows like cops
10:27uh and other cop shows being taken off air um will it change how you you know think about the people
10:33that you are following in the future or choose to document uh in the future i'm really excited about
10:41this moment and the moment of activism that we're all currently a part of it just feels like people
10:47brilliant thinkers have been discussing some of the theories that we're hearing now for decades but
10:54all of a sudden we're actually engaging with them as a country so before that really wasn't on the
11:01table so i i'm very excited about all of the activism i'm excited about the movement i just think that this
11:07is actually giving us a different future to envision you know the status quo as you mentioned it's just
11:16been one that has been racked by a history of racism so now all of a sudden as a country we're
11:23engaging with where can we go next how do we change the status quo and that's definitely where art comes
11:29into play when you see different representations of um police or the future of police on television
11:37then you can wrap your head around what could be different how can we make things different and
11:43i definitely plan to engage that way with future projects yeah and queen how about for you for even your
11:51own personal projects are you thinking about it differently uh now that there's so much protest
11:57and so much people that people just want to say um um i can't say i'm 100 thinking about things
12:07differently because i i've always thought like this you know and we've and when i say i asked me my
12:14partner shaquem flavor and my mom we've always thought with um the intention um in mind to make
12:23sure that we gave people opportunities who would not get them if we didn't do it and that was just
12:28from day one and and maybe it's because i'm from a hip-hop generation my mother loved hip-hop as well and
12:34she was a high school art teacher who was that cool teacher that you would go to if you had a problem or
12:40you go to if it was going wrong in your household or you know so i have like a lot of extended family
12:46just from my mother being um a safe haven for so many hundreds and hundreds of students um but she
12:53also sneakily showed them how to become activists by expressing themselves and maybe it was a sitting
13:01in school if there was no heat in the school you know she maybe quietly told them well one should not
13:07have to tolerate not having heat in the school but perhaps one should sit in one's auditorium and
13:13not attend class you know what i mean but she would kind of like you know let them know that they had
13:19power and they needed to use their power and they needed to use their voice so rather than just walking
13:24out of school and saying forget this joining together to create more of a movement to be of one voice
13:31um for a purpose and so you know it really just solidifies everything we've been trying to do
13:39all these years and always coming back to the hood always coming back to urvington you know north east
13:45orange you know jersey city the stomping grounds where we come from and pouring more into that dirt
13:51you know what i mean putting more nutrition into that very soil as we expand ourselves around the world
13:57because i'm we're global citizens at this point people right you know me will cube you know we
14:03we're global citizens but we know where we come from and we know how um malnourished our communities
14:10have been in terms of education like my high school looks nothing like it did when i went through went
14:15there unfortunately so many you could literally graduate my high school and go into cosmetology which
14:21if you get your license uh go into automotive become a mechanic like right out of out of uh
14:28college you learn woodshop there was so many things that you could take other than just
14:33reading writing and arithmetic right um and and so it helped you figure out what you wanted to do with
14:38your life and help you build a skill but um all of those electives and extra classes and choices were
14:46kind of taken away we have one computer class you know what i mean and those things should be should
14:51have grown exponentially yet you saw them whittle down and it's like why must our educational system be
14:57taken from you know and you know anyway we could talk about that forever but um i think in terms of
15:04the projects that we've had we've all we've had a few things like irons in the fire that are happening
15:09even quicker now with with um the covet pandemic a lot of things have slowed down but not behind the scenes
15:15so a lot of people are still being prepared for and and so as as uh the world begins to open up
15:22hopefully all those projects will continue to just grow just uh be sort of activated um but they do
15:29the same thing they still allow for this generation's voice to be heard so you're gonna see
15:35big things coming from this camp over here in terms of the the voice of this generation being
15:42heard i'm not no old head or nothing like that but for me it's not about me it's about you know these
15:4820 something year olds you know what i mean these teenagers um even 30 years i mean anybody from
15:54under 40 to me but particularly in that like teenage years those 20s like those out there on the street
16:01powerful voices who are connected to each other they're not looking at race they're like enjoying each
16:07other's culture and you know it's not it's it's for us to keep keep moving the blocks out the way
16:12because we had that opportunity but people put the blocks back in right separated us once again so it's
16:19like for it's about this generation interlocking and staying there you know it's for the whole
16:24ultimate cause of uh you know moving these blocks away permanently so that we can all move forward as a
16:29as a species like what could we what could we do you know what do you want to go to mars for what you
16:36do when you get there yeah no i love that the rest of this richness you know what i mean what what
16:43what could you tell a martian you know i mean about our behavior here on earth you know what i'm saying
16:48so it's i just feel like we have we have so much growing to do and um you know programs like this like
16:54the queen collective it's really about we're going to having a voice it's about nadine having a voice
17:00it's about sam having a voice and giving voice to other people so that they have a voice and i think
17:07it's so timely seeing something like gloves off especially you know especially being a coming from
17:12a cop family like you're seeing an officer who who cares about her community who's been discriminated
17:18against but still choosing to give back and and and and how being a police officer helps her feel
17:25more human and it's important to see both sides of that because right now we're seeing a lot of one
17:30side and you know we still have to figure this whole thing out you know what i mean so um i couldn't it
17:38couldn't be more timely to see a film like that you know we're still dealing with hair discrimination
17:44you know meanwhile you know you're cherry picking the best of us you can't do that you know you can't
17:49like take this part and then throw the rest of us away sorry you know what i mean so it's just like
17:55you know these things are very important to be seen and and shown and i can't wait until nadine's
18:00new documentary comes out which she could tell you about herself but it's gonna it's i can't wait to
18:05see it because it sounds super dope and it's something that we need to see as well yay before nadine you
18:11plug your new documentary which we can't wait to find out i want to talk about just this idea of
18:17exploring all of our humanity because we have queen like you said we've seen so much of one side we've
18:23seen so much of trauma we've seen so much death whether it's covid or police brutality um sam i want
18:30to ask you what is it important for you as an artist to show the fullness of humanity and especially these
18:37like revolutionary portrayals of blackness and what i mean by that is you know black love without
18:43trauma you know uh black joy without trauma is that um important for you in your work or how does that
18:52fit in when you're thinking about creating a new project absolutely i think that's so important because
18:59i think so many of the images that were fed um you know are about oppression black oppression and black
19:08struggle and those things are so important and but they don't um fully define us and they don't fully
19:15describe us um and i've been just personally i've been so inspired by images of black joy and black love
19:24and black and also people who are rewriting the rules even even through the struggle that we're
19:32you know that we're going through right now seeing people like attica and tiara who are dealing with
19:39that but also trying to put forth something new um is so exciting to me um you know there's a lot for
19:49example there's a lot going on in louisville right now and attica sort of at the forefront and you know
19:56i'm sort of following her every day but you know i see her on social media out in the streets smiling
20:04with people inspiring people every day and that literally keeps me going through everything that's
20:10happening so i just think it can't be underestimated um and so it's just has always been really important
20:17for me to to put that you know to kind of put that forward because i think that's so important to
20:24just stay inspired yeah for sure and i can't believe we're running we have literally ran out of time
20:31so nadine before they kill me really quick just one quick moment about uh before they kill me before
20:38they cut us off okay it's uh my film is about my palestinian muslim family running a grocery store in
20:44the rural south and i talked to our customers after the 2016 election about islamophobic political
20:50rhetoric and how they reconcile it with visiting our store oh wow look at that elevator change
20:57quick and dirty and then queen how can people see these films support uh queen collected all these
21:04films are streaming on bbc.com so you can just you can stream them now everything is available and um
21:10yeah check them out they're gonna be amazing yes check them out and thank you so much for joining
21:15us at the essence festival of culture entertainment all access i'm joy marie mckenzie see you guys
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