Some people look at the Civil Rights Movement like it’s a relic of the past, like institutional racism is no longer an issue in the United States. In the grand scope of history, it can be easy to look at the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 and declare the national problem of racism completely over, and certain cable news outlets love to claim this to be the case, regardless of the continued trend of unarmed black men and women finding themselves murdered at the hands of police officers who are supposed to be protecting and serving their neighborhoods.

The current state of Americana is very much in flux, so it’s up to movies, television, and other forms of art to document the spirit, hope, and despair of the era before history decides to gloss over the loss of innocent life and relegate the death of innocents to a footnote in a textbook. Movies have the power to take statistics and turn them into stories that audiences can relate to. Queen & Slim is one such movie. While not directly based on a true story, the film captures the essence of race relations in modern America. Queen & Slim follows a young black couple who are accosted by a trigger happy policeman, but manage to kill the officer in self-defense after he starts firing his gun with intent to kill. On the run from the law, the pair embark on an odyssey across America, looking for justice and finding themselves.

While promoting Queen & Slim’s home video release, director Melina Matsoukas spoke to Screen Rant about creating a story that is based on the social, political, and racial discourse that defines our current era. She talks about casting the perfect pair of Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya. She discusses the pressures and responsibilities of directing her first feature film, and the responsibilities of using her platform as a filmmaker to tell a black story that can be shared with a mass audience.

Queen & Slim is out now on digital and releases March 3 on DVD and Blu-ray.

You’ve made a name for yourself directing so many music videos over the years before moving to TV. I mean, those Beyonce and Lady Gaga songs are pretty much the soundtrack to my high school years. But this is your debut feature film. Was this something you always had your sights set on, or did the movie kind of come across your desk and suddenly you felt like you needed to direct it?

In the future, 20, 30, 50 years from now, I don’t know how history is going to talk about today. I don’t know what they will do to whitewash today’s racial tensions, and I think it’s so important for a movie like this to truly lay bare the way things are, the relationship between cops and their community. We’ve seen it before. Only in the movies can you find an accurate depiction of New York City in the 1970s. The city itself doesn’t represent its past. They’re like, “That never happened!”

Both, actually. I had been looking for something in the narrative space for quite some time, but nothing really moved me. I don’t think anyone was really able to capture who I was or what I valued as an artist and as a filmmaker, until I met Lena Waithe. It was difficult for me because, honestly, a lot of the films I gravitate towards are by writer/directors, and I’m very much not a writer. So, to find someone with a piece of material that really spoke to my values and my style and my history was very important to me. I hadn’t found anything until I met Lena. We worked on Master of None together, and she was writing a script, and she told me she was working on that. It was like, she kinda pitched me the concept, which I was really intrigued by. Then, when she sent me the script, she said she only had me in mind to direct it. I guess I was a little hesitant because I had read so many scripts that hadn’t moved me in that way, but I picked up that script and I couldn’t put it down. I probably finished it in less than two hours. And for once, I was just a fan. It didn’t feel like work. It had all the elements of what I wanted in a feature; as a filmmaker, but also as a human. It was really political, it had something to say, a really strong perspective. It was about the black experience, which I value, representing our stories on screen. And it was a beautiful love story between two people who probably would not have gravitated towards each other had they not had this traumatic shared experience that really forced them to see one another and become connected in ways I hadn’t really seen before. I hadn’t seen that represented before, in terms of black love on screen. I wanted to be part of that history.

Right? “There were always this many white people in Harlem.”

Yeah, “Brooklyn never looked like that!”

So, is the idea something like, whatever the future holds for this country, we can’t forget the way things are right now?

Exactly. “We always had a Whole Foods here!”

I’m thinking of myself, I mean, I don’t even drive, so I’ve obviously never been pulled over. But for myself, as a light-skinned American, I can’t imagine that any one-on-one interaction I have with a cop will lead to me getting killed. It never crosses my mind. I live in New York City, and we’ve got cops suddenly in every subway station, which isn’t pleasant. I’ve never been stopped and frisked. There’s a disconnect where, even if you live in the city, you probably don’t even notice all the stuff that happens around you unless you’re the target. And I think art like this movie gets to show people the things they don’t have to see in real life, or that they subconsciously look away from.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s part of, especially for black people and black culture, really reclaiming our stories and representing history and the times in which we live, and reflect them honestly and truly. I believe deeply in the power of cinema to tell those stories. I was able to grow up on Spike Lee’s work. He did a lot of that with Do the Right Thing, and Julie Dash with Daughters of the Dust, and John Singleton with Boyz n the Hood… I was just talking about how classic Boyz n the Hood was in capturing the conflict in L.A. in a time when I had no experience of it, and how important that was to the community. So I do believe that it’s cinema’s function and responsibility and duty to reflect the time in which we live. I’m very much a believer in that, and to have an honest visual recording of that, as well. We write about it, we obviously have literature, articles, and press from all these years, but it’s hard to picture it. But when you put a visual stamp on that history, it creates this powerful vision that will hopefully stand the test of time and remain a testament to the ways in which we’ve had to live.

Something I really appreciate, and didn’t even think about until just now, is that there’s no “audience surrogate” white character who weaves in and out of the story. Was there ever any pressure from the studio to have that kind of character?

Exactly. Yes, I really wanted to put audiences within that experience. I wanted to create empathy or understanding for my community and the struggles we go through. I wanted all people to know what it feels like when that blue siren is behind you when you’re driving a car and you don’t know if you’re going to get out of that altercation alive. And I feel like we were successful in that, thankfully. It’s really impacted audiences in a beautiful way and caused a lot of dialogue. That was definitely the point, to make you see what some people choose to ignore. And to empathize, to see yourself. I think everyone can relate to these characters. I think, obviously, they speak to our experience, and they are very much black characters, but I think that so many people can see so much of themselves and know who Queen & Slim are. He’s just a simple man who finds satisfaction in the simple things in life, and I think that speaks to so many men living in America.

What was the process of getting Jodie and Daniel?

Not at all! Both Lena and I are really strong in our stories. It was one of the things that attracted me to the script, that it defied all the traditions of white Hollywood, trying to understand black stories through a white character. We’ve seen that time and time again. That wasn’t really necessary for this. It really spoke to our community and the way that we want to reflect our history. I don’t need to understand myself, the way I walk through life, through a white person. And I honestly don’t think white audiences need that either. Having the courage to defy the traditions through which we’ve been raised. We’re not cutting to the cops chasing them, to see how far or close they are to being caught. We don’t have that kind of B-story, which made the shooting much more difficult. We had to rely on Jodie and Daniel, but they really pulled through. And I just thought it was really interesting… I don’t know if you would call it an experimental way of writing, but it felt very different, and challenging for me as a filmmaker; I had to find a way to maintain the tension that a police chase would have without being able to cut to it, visually. I had to do that through use of cinematography, lighting, and sound, in order to maintain that tension. That was a really interesting challenge for me, as a director.

And Jodie?

Daniel had met Lena at a screening for Get Out. They connected as she was writing the very early drafts of the script. He asked if he could read it, not that he was vying for the job, but just as another creative wanting to collaborate with someone he respected. He read the script, and he knew right away that he was Slim. So he told her he wanted to play Slim, but she kinda pumped the brakes and said, “Well, I want Melina to direct it, so it’s really her decision.” And he respected that. Then, when I read it, and I came on to direct and produce, she mentioned Daniel. I actually had somebody else in mind. I didn’t know much of Daniel aside from Get Out. I didn’t think the character from Get Out was Slim. But because of my respect for Lena, I met Daniel. I think, within the first five minutes of the meeting, I knew I found my Slim. He was everything. He had such passion for this role, and it’s really a testament to his talent in that he really embodied every character he plays. That’s why I thought the character he plays in Get Out was who he really was. At that meeting, I offered him the role. I called Lena afterwards and said, “I hope you still like him.” Obviously, she was still ecstatic.

More: Queen & Slim: 8 Reasons Why It’s The Modern Day Bonnie & Clyde

Both Lena and I wanted to use the opportunity to create a platform for a new black actress. It’s not an opportunity we get often, to diversify our industry, so we didn’t want to waste that opportunity. So we went to Carmen Cuba, our casting director, who’s tremendous. And Jodie was in the first round! I remember watching her, kinda not believing that we had found our Queen, but also knowing that she was it. We tried to top her, but we just couldn’t. She was so layered, so vulnerable. She had this joy, but also this protective spirit that Queen needed. And then we did a chemistry test, and the chemistry was undeniable. We were really happy that we had found our Queen & Slim, and they were able to support each other’s performances in ways I hadn’t really seen before.

Queen & Slim is out now on digital and releases March 3 on DVD and Blu-ray.