Lena Waithe described her first feature film as "protest art" when she shared some footage of it earlier this year to a convention crowd and now we can finally see what she meant. The first trailer for Queen & Slim was shared during the BET Awards and it looks capital-T Topical, while also examining the relationship between two desperate characters described as a "black Bonnie & Clyde."
“It’s meant to get people talking,” Waithe said at the convention. “The film is not made to give the audience answers, but instead to ask questions and show what it looks like to be black and in love while the world is burning all around you.”
Waithe said that the film is her way of protesting injustice.
“I can't always make it to the marches or the rallies,” Waithe explained on the set of the film. “When I sit down at my computer, that's me. That's my rallying cry. That's me trying to figure out who we are.”
The film gets moving after an aggressive police officer points his gun at Jodie Turner-Smith's character. Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya kills the officer in self-defense, kicking off their life on the lam. Kaluuya said that the movie got under his skin, having lived through tense interactions with police in real life.
“I have lived a lot of this shit and that's why it spoke to me. I've been through a lot of certain situations with police. It's life, certain situations with the law can stop that and a lot of my friends can't even get into the country because [of] saying yes to a caution [that] they should not have said yes to at 14 or 15," he said.
The Melina Metsoukas-directed film will also feature appearances from Chloe Sevigny and country singer Sturgill Simpson. Take a look at the trailer up top.
