Meet the powerful female duo behind National Geographic’s Queens | National Geographic
National Geographic's Queens celebrates powerful female leaders in the natural world. Behind every inspirational animal on screen is an equally gritty and determined woman. All the women on this Queen's Journey are true leaders— all hail the Queens!
Storytelling is in our blood, and the fact that we get to tell stories at National Geographic means we follow in the footsteps of giants. Yet, at the same time, we also want to tell stories that haven't been told before, and we want to tell them in new ways. This industry in Natural History has been dominated, you know, most often by men. What drove us to really make sure that this was a success is to be able to open those doors, smooth the road, even though it's still going to be hard, and to empower women to be part of this journey.
Hi, I'm Janet Vising. I'm the senior vice president of development and production for the Natural History slate. Hi, I'm Pam Caral, and I am Nat Geo's executive producer for the series Queens. We're here today at the National Geographic headquarters.
There's so much that's groundbreaking about the series Queens. Faith MMI, who you would see in our Behind the Queens episode, we feature her. She is the first black Kenyan woman to produce an episode of premium natural history. There's just something at the back of my head that just goes, "Just you wait," because I'm just a driven person. Faith also tells the story not only of our producer-director mentees but also some of the amazing conservationists—women conservationists— in the field that they worked with during every stage of production. So when we say women, we really mean it on every level.
It took four years to make this film; there was probably 2 and 1/2 years of that literally sitting out in nature, waiting for animals to show up. No bone today, just a lot of rain. I say that animals don't have a call time; they do not show up when you think. Furthermore, the bigger challenge these days is climate change. Aon wants to use her skills as a cinematographer to inspire young people to take action to protect our planet. Animals are not arriving or behaving in some of the traditional ways that we've actually had because of climate change.
Taji remembers water here, but relying on memory only works when the world stays the same. You're featuring animals and female leadership in the natural world. Not every animal has the same strategy, and watching this, I feel like it’s about women— every, you know, us human women. Every one of us has a different approach to how we lead our life, how we lead in our family, how we lead in the office, but there's no wrong way. We can learn from animals in the natural world by looking at their relationships, their compassion.
We're hoping that everyone can connect to our Queens, whether they’re fathers, sisters, grandfathers, grandmothers, or granddaughters in their lives. They will look at these animals and see their own family connections, their own relationships with female leaders in their lives. They'll see parallels and feel deeply when they watch Queens. That's what I hope for.
It is the hardest time on our planet for these animals. It's so important for us to showcase their lives, and hopefully, you know, we had a saying that if you love something, you will fight for it. So when you see our films and you fall in love with our characters, I hope people in the future will make some different choices on how they live, which will hopefully help the condition of our planet and the homes of these animals that we feature.