'National Geographic' Has Kenyan Director Faith Musembi Channeling Her Inner 'Queens'

National Geographic’s newest docu-series, Queens, is looking to showcase the power and poise of the animal kingdom’s matriarchs and female leaders. The seven-part series takes viewers on an intimate journey through six iconic worlds – from the peace-loving bonobos of the Congo basin, to the powerful elephants of the Savanna – to narrate how their fierce and formidable queens handle sacrifice, with resilience, while giving and receiving love. This latest production in the world of natural history is commanded by a female-led production team from around the world, and narrated by the power presence that is award-winning American actress Angela Bassett.

At the head of the crew sits Kenyan producer and director Faith Musembi. The Kenya-born, South Africa-raised filmmaker, who lives in the U.K., specializes in natural history narratives and has spent her career telling stories that spotlight the beauty and hardiness of Africa’s natural resources – while revealing the frightfully urgent needs for sustainable conversation. Her work as a BBC director, and her writing and directing credits for the 2017 short films Pendo and Chuma (2019), show that the director's ability to convey animals in their natural habitat relays to the intimacy of human emotion.

Image courtesy of National Geographic.

OkayAfrica spoke to Musembi about the opportunity to be seen on the world stage, the importance of owning your own voice, and the resilience of our female counterparts.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

OkayAfrica: You worked as a director and producer – what was it like being an African woman leading this team?

Faith Musemb: I went on a bit of a journey. For the first two and a half years, I was a field director, working in the fields and directing shoots. Having everyone follow my directions, while I was learning at the same time, was quite mind-blowing because a lot of them have been working in the field for 20+ years.

And then, when I was offered to produce the final episode “Behind the Queens,” that's when really I was calling the shots and planning things. And it was surreal, I think for the first few weeks because it is just so out of body. You realize: National Geographic has you producing this premium episode on a level that you've never done before, and they're trusting you to do it. And for me, I love it when people expect so much out of me because I step up.

I think it was also about National Geographic showing that they're ready for things to be different and not just talk about it, but actually being about it. It's been this incredible, joyful ride for me and I'm hoping that because of the journey I've been on, so many people will be inspired and people will see that there's a world of possibilities that's available if you just ask yourself, "What if we do this differently?"

What is something that you learned while working on Queens?

I'd probably say my biggest takeaway is realizing that I have a voice and people care. Because it's so easy to, when you're in most fields I would say, if you get into a system of doing things you can almost silence your own voice because you want to be in this “assembly line” way of doing stuff. But the team working on Queens was so intentional about encouraging me to speak up and, I have to admit, it took me quite a while to step into that because of my tendency to shrink in some spaces. But then here's this larger-than-life platform and I'm being encouraged to be heard.

So, you speak up and at first, your voice shakes a little bit but the more you do it and the more you're called to do it, you get this confidence and embrace it. I had to tell myself, “My voice is needed because the world is at a place where it needs as many diverse voices telling these stories as possible."

QUEENS | Official Trailer | National Geographicwww.youtube.com

What lessons do you think African women can take away from our animal counterparts?

What stands out is these animals are fierce – they are so resilient. They're always trying to find different solutions to doing things. And we see different leadership styles – you're looking at the way the hyenas lead compared to how the Ethiopian wolves do, or the elephants, it's different styles of leadership, but above all else, they keep going. I'm hoping people, women, will draw inspiration from that.

When you're watching all these animal leaders, one of the things that becomes very clear is a lot of them are really up against it in many ways. Their world is changing. Not only do they have to deal with the regular challenges of being an animal in their natural space, but they're dealing with the changing world.

You're never going to see an animal feeling sorry for itself and going, "Oh, well, we used to drink water here," or "We used to cross here and now there's a road." No, they're thinking, "How are we going to figure out our life around this?" They're always adapting and I think that's really incredible and inspirational and I'm really hoping women will draw inspiration from them, from those qualities.

Queens is being released in seven parts. Is there a particular episode or animal narrative that you're most excited for us to see?

I'm biased on this one. Probably my episode “Behind the Queens,” I love the fact that you get to come across these different women who were trained during the making of the series, or who were mentors, then you've got these incredible conservation groups. I hope people will watch that episode and be inspired. Not only people who are into wildlife, I'm hoping that people who didn't even know that they love it will watch this and be sparked and inspired to get into it in some way. It doesn't always have to be as a conservationist or as a filmmaker. It can be anything, scientists, researchers, part of the teams that are designing new technology for filming. That's the episode I'm really hoping people will watch. There'll be lots of inspiration.

Queens premieres on National Geographic on March 4, and will be available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu the next day.