Franchesca Ramsey And Director Kaitlin Fontana On The Comedy Docuseries, 'Franchesca' (Sundance Interview)

Franchesca Ramsey is returning to her roots. The ever-poised and polished YouTuber is dressed in bright colors and sports and a bold lip in the midst of the grey and white background of Sundance Film Festival. The comedian, YouTuber, journalist, actress and producer has returned to the film festival for the second year in a row with her new comedy docuseries, aptly titled Franchesca (at least for now.) This isn’t the pilot Ramsey recently sold to Comedy Central, Franchesca is something else entirely. A short form series which premiered under Sundance's inaugural Indie Episodic section, Franchesca combines beauty and culture in the brilliant candid way Ramsey has mastered. Sitting with director Kaitlin Fontana, the women speak enthusiastically about the origins of the series. “It was really collaborative," Ramsey explained. “My manager introduced me to Kaitlin. They worked on a project together. I had a development deal with Topic to create something. We just weren't really sure what we wanted to do, but we knew we wanted it to be very different from anything else we'd seen. I loved the idea of exploring beauty and culture because that was how I got my start on YouTube. I started making videos in my bathroom, and it really came out of the fact that there weren't any natural hair videos. I needed help styling my hair and I didn't know how. I was just very fortunate that I built an audience because there wasn't anyone else doing it. Even though I wasn't an authority, I think people connected with my passion and my honesty.”

Fontana was also interested in making sure the series stretched and expanded further than beauty and culture -- examining some of the things Ramsey deals with on a daily basis as a Black woman in the public sphere. “I think that that's an interesting and important part about the pilot," she expressed. “Online abuse is something that Franchesca absolutely deals with. One of the first things she said in the pilot is, 'No I'm not going to deal with this today. I'm hanging out with my friend today.' I think that's such a part of women's lives. To compartmentalize so much of what we're doing.”

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Why Is There No Black Press At The Sundance Film Festival?

Sundance is the most prominent film festival in North America with thousands of films screening each year. This year, Black representation in the programming slate has been explosive. From projects like Sorry to Bother You, Blindspotting, Hale County: This Morning, This Evening, Two Dope Queens, Francesca and many others, there are so many projects to screen and write about — effectively putting them on the world's radar before many of them even receive distribution. However, as I stood in the press lines each day, or in waiting rooms before my interviews, I was one of the only people color. Aside from Black Girls Nerds Editor-in-Chief Jamie Broadnax, and her crew, Sundance seemed void of writers from Black publications covering the various films and events. But why is that this case?

On Sunday, the fourth day of Sundance 2018, I sat in a packed theater having just screened the forthcoming Netflix film, Come Sunday. The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Condola Rashad, Danny Glover and Lakeith Stanfield and tells the true story of Bishop Carlton Pearson, an evangelical megastar whose life-altering epiphany shifts his entire theology. The film stemmed from an episode of NPR’s This American Life. Though the film boasts almost an entirely Black cast, the director, writers and producers were all white. Both the cast and crew were on stage for a Q&A after the screening, when someone from the majority white audience blurted out, “We want to hear the people of color speak on stage, no more white people!" The crowd immediately quieted until Stanfield took the mic and jokingly broke the awkward silence. Up until that point, none of the actors of color has spoken.  As I chuckled to myself, I realized, that however uncomfortable that moment may have been, it raised several questions about Black stories and who gets to present and speak about them to the world.

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