Director Melina Matsoukas said making the jump from directing music videos for Beyonce to directing Queen & Slim for the big screen has given her the chance to tell a “necessary” story about “black people, my people”.
Matsoukas’ drama is about a black couple whose Tinder date ends with the duo on the run after they kill a white police officer in self-defence.
A ‘necessary’ story: Jodie Turner-Smith in Queen & Slim.
“When I read the script it was everything I had been looking for in a feature – it was political, it had something to say, it felt really necessary and it was entertaining,” Matsoukas said at the film’s London premiere.
“It also represented a community of people – black people, my people – that we don’t always see on screen and I really wanted to tell our stories to our lens, unfiltered, and we were able to do that.”