Melina Matsoukas was born on January 14, 1981, she is an American music video, film, commercial and television director. She is a two-time Grammy Award winner and four-time MTV Video Music Awards winner for her "We Found Love" and "Formation" music videos. She was honored with the Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal by the American Film Institute in 2019. Her directorial debut in film was Queen & Slim, starring Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya, and written by Lena Waithe. It was released on November 27, 2019, by Universal Pictures. Matsoukas grew up in the Co-op City housing development in the Bronx. Her father worked as a builder, and her mother taught math in a local high school. When Matsoukas was eight, the family moved to Hackensack, New Jersey. Her father is of half Greek and half Jewish descent, and her mother is of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Jamaican descent. Both her name and surname are Greek. She earned her degree at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and completed her graduate work at the AFI Conservatory with an MFA in cinematography. Her graduate thesis was on music videos. Matsoukas started out at Black Dog Film, then the now-defunct Gorilla Flix film production company, and is currently a director at Prettybird, which she has been signed to since 2011. Her work is described as "chock full of bright colors or crisp black and white images, smooth spotlights, and tasteful retro video models."Matsoukas says that expensive equipment is not necessary for a quality video and one should never think that way: "A good video has the right visuals, a well conceptualized story and should be exciting and elicit reaction." In an interview for Venus Zine's Fall 2010 issue, she says about being part of the music video world, "I love it. The quick turnaround, the creativity." In 2016 and 2017, Matsoukas directed several episodes of the critically and publicly acclaimed television series Master of None and Insecure. Matsoukas made her directorial debut in film with Queen & Slim, starring Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya, and written by Lena Waithe. It was released on November 27, 2019, by Universal Pictures. Matsoukas wanted Queen & Slim to be your first feature film because “It falls in line with my politics and my values. I like to make things that create empathy and understanding for our culture. Queen and Slim are not the same; they’re not meant to be together. They weren’t getting along on that first date, and they probably wouldn’t have seen each other again if they hadn’t been forced together by this shared experience. They were forced to become vulnerable with each other. And we wanted to shed light on police brutality, on all the fallen soldiers we’ve lost because of this oppressive institution. I also wanted to showcase black love and unity, not just romantic love. Black unity is our greatest power against oppression. What is represented on-screen is not just the love between those two characters, but the love that the community shows Queen and Slim.” She been making painful things beautiful because it’s a running theme in her work. This is what she had to say about that, “Black culture is the biggest commodity in the world. It’s shipped around the world, stolen from us, exploited, and then underappreciated. It was really important for me to showcase it in a beautiful light, to show that the true value of life is community, not what you have or what you own.” “What I loved about Queen & Slim is that it’s everything. It’s a comedy, it’s a drama. At times, it’s almost like a documentary there’s brutal reality but then some of the scenes seem fantastical, like we’re in a dream. Even the darkness can be beautiful.”

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