Lena Waithe, Daniel Kaluuya, and Jodie Smith Talks Queen & Slim At AFI Fest

From two-time Grammy award winning director Melina Matsoukas, the visionary filmmaker behind this generation’s most powerful pop-culture experiences, including HBO’s Insecure, the Emmy award-winning “Thanksgiving” episode of Netflix’s Master of None, and Beyonce’s “Formation,” and from trailblazing, Emmy-winning writer Lena Waithe (Netflix’s Master of None), comes the unflinching new drama, Queen & Slim.

While on a forgettable first date together in Ohio, a black man (Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya) and a black woman (Jodie Turner-Smith, in her first starring feature-film role), are pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. The situation escalates, with sudden and tragic results, when the man kills the police officer in self-defense. Terrified and in fear for their lives, the man, a retail employee, and the woman, a criminal defense lawyer, are forced to go on the run. But the incident is captured on video and goes viral, and the couple unwittingly become a symbol of trauma, terror, grief and pain for people across the country. 

As they drive, these two unlikely fugitives will discover themselves and each other in the most dire and desperate of circumstances and will forge a deep and powerful love that will reveal their shared humanity and shape the rest of their lives 

Joining a legacy of films such Set It Off and Thelma & Louise, Queen & Slim is a powerful, consciousness-raising love story that confronts the staggering human toll of racism and the life-shattering price of violence. 

The feature-film directorial debut from Melina Matsoukas (executive producer/director of HBO’s Insecure) stars Academy Award® nominee Daniel Kaluuya as “Slim” and rising star Jodie Turner-Smith (Syfy’s Nightflyers), as “Queen.” Waithe wrote the screenplay from a story by herself and bestselling author James Frey (A Million Little Pieces, Katerina). 

The film is produced by Frey, Waithe, Matsoukas, Michelle Knudsen, Andrew Coles, Brad Weston and Pamela Abdy. The executive producers are Pamela Hirsch, Kaluuya, Aaron L. Gilbert, Jason Cloth, Reginald Cash, Angelo Pullen, David Krintzman and Guymon Casady

Universal Pictures and Makeready present Queen & Slim in association with 3BlackDot and Bron Creative, a Makeready/De La Revolución Films/Hillman Grad/3BlackDot production. Universal Pictures will distribute the film worldwide, with eOne handling distribution in select territories including the U.K. and Canada.

We had the opportunity to interview Lena Waithe at the Queen & Slim premiere:

In Theaters November 27, 2019

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