A young daughter prepares to leave the family home with her mothers blessing to start a new life.
An expectant mother worries about the viability of her mate to help bring up their first child together.
A grandmothers wisdom jumpstarts her offsprings learning of survival skills.
‘Queens’National Geographic
The filmmakers goal was also to appeal to people not necessarily interested in the genre.
We wanted everyone to laugh, to cry, to see themselves in these characters.
Each episode is a mini-movie, in its own world with these brilliant characters.
A herd of African elephants walks at sunset across the plains of Africa.National Geographic for Disney/Oscar Dewhurst
Both the product and the process of it was different.
Another part of the intentionality was using the voice of a female narrator.
We wanted a voice of female experience, not a voice of gravitas and science, says Sarosh.
We wanted every element ofQueensto be groundbreaking.
Needle drops include songs by leading female artists including Sia, M.I.A.
The original main title track is composed and performed by rising singer-songwriter Alewya.
We wanted each episode to be somewhere that looked and felt very different and very immersive.
The elephants, in particular, trusted the filmmakers enough to bring their babies close to the camera vehicles.
That would always be a high because you recognize how sentient these beings are, says Musembi.
Elephants are just so intelligent.
You make eye contact with them, and you get chills because you might see they recognize youre there.
And then the matriarch came in and seemed to say okay.
Tania is the only woman who can ever say shes been fed with a group of bonobos.
you’re able to be strong and vulnerable, says Musembi.
You dont have to be either/or.
And we see that a lot across all the species.
