Austin, Texas based filmmaker, Beverly “Bev” Chukwu creates an impactful story about trauma, through a horror lens, in her short film, Princess, with the help of her Nigerian American, BIPOC, and Queer cast and crew.
A reclusive 33-year-old must confront her assaulter at a festival, triggering a cascade of violent hallucinations.
As reported by Deadline, Chukwu, whose previous projects have been showcased at the Women in Horror Film Festival, Cine Las Americas, AGLIFF, and whose feature “PRINCE OF LAVENDALE STREET” won the 2021 BlueCat Screenplay competition, was chosen as one of four writers of the inaugural class of The Blacklist x Youtube Originals Black Voice Creator Fellows. With both financial grants and creative support, The Black Voices Fellowship aids writers in developing their proof of concept and pitch for their television series. Princess is Chukwu’s proof of concept for her series, Foreverland.
After a very public miscarriage, a sheltered woman is exiled from her religious Nigerian community and forced to start over in an unfamiliar city, where she is haunted by the figures of her childhood imaginary world.
Princess will explore how expectations of perfection can often burden the eldest child and cause them to silently suffer through in order to save everyone else. With over seven years in various mental health arenas and almost a year of providing behavior therapy to neurodivergent youth and adults, as well as previous fellowships from the Black List x WIF Episodic Lab, and the James A. Michener Center for Writers, where she earned an MFA in screenwriting and fiction, Chukwu is more than qualified to tackle this complex story about shame, trauma and healing. For Chukwu though, this is a personal story that she was inspired to create when she was reflecting on her own role as the eldest daughter in a strict Nigerian family, during a time she constantly worried and wondered about how her “unusual” career and romantic life could potentially get her disowned by her family. While many works in the genre are full of muted and dark tones, Princess will reflect the reality of the vibrant Nigerian community by being full of color and life, masking the evils hidden within. Princess was inspired by the HBO series I May Destroy You, as well as the horror films The Babadook, His House, Us, and Get Out.
Princess has just four days left to reach their crowdfunding goal through their Seed & Spark campaign. So far, the film has reached 71% of their goal, with support from Seed & Spark Patron and one of the creators and stars of Creep, Mark Duplass, awarding the project a Seed & Spark Patron’s Circle grant of $1,000. The crowdfunding campaign for Princess has a variety of incentives for donors of different tier levels; from a shout out on their Instagram story to a thank you in the film credits, and even story consultations with creator Bev Chukwu, and producer, Maryan Nagy Captan. If you’re interested in supporting Princess, be sure to get your donation in by March 6th!
