Queen Latifah has teamed up with Procter & Gamble and Tribeca Studios for an epic project aiming to promote the importance of gender and racial equality behind-the-scenes in Hollywood. The Queen Collective in partnership with Procter & Gamble and Tribeca Film Studios provides mentorship and production support, while also creating various distribution opportunities for the next crop of female directors of color.
Through the forward-thinking collective, budding directors B. Monét and Haley Elizabeth Anderson were given the opportunity to have their films (Ballet After Dark and If There Is Light, respectively) premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday, April 26. Their short documentaries are also available to stream on Hulu as of April 27. The collective supplies these young women with opportunities they made not have had initially.
Ballet After Dark “tells the story a young woman who found the strength to survive after an attack. She created an organization that is helping sexual abuse and domestic violence survivors find healing after trauma through dance therapy.” If There Is Light follows the story ofJaniyah Blackmon, who “wrestles with her new life in New York City as her mom tries to move her family out of the shelter system and into a stable home.”
During an exclusive roundtable with the Newark, N.J. native, Proctor & Gamble’s Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard, and The Queen Collective’s directors Monét and Anderson on Friday, April 27, the development of the collective and the importance of diversity behind-the-scenes was discussed in detail.
“We see a lot of stories that have been told through their lens in every way, shape and form,” Latifah said during the development of the Queen Collective. “White guys have been able to tell their story in every sort of way, and unfortunately it hasn’t been that way for women. And it hasn’t been that way for people of other colors or genders. That’s the part that’s missing. We want to make sure that everyone is allowed to tell their story.”
Check out the trailers for Ballet After Dark and If There Is Light as well as some photos from the event in the gallery below.
