By Kristen Hernandez
Broward County, FL – An uptick of black-on-black violent crimes throughout our community has led local film maker, Eugene Luner, to create a movement that brings unity and healing to people of color. Lunerversal Films presented Luner’s third movie, Queen’s King, which showcases that true love can lift anyone struggling to make good choices even in the most unlikely place.
“Queen’s King is a symbolism of peace and unity. It’s when we all come as one, spending time together to fight against violence and gun violence,” said Luner, during an exclusive interview with Villij News. “When I see the division within the black community and how black on black crime seems nonstop, it hurts me.”
Luner wrote, directed and produced Queen’s King which celebrates black love between two Haitian-Americans that live in a crime-infested area within Fort Lauderdale. Ram is faced with choosing between life as a gangster or follow his aspiration to become a rap artist, and Nefe is faced with choosing to follow the strict path her parents required or support her man.
“I asked God to use me,” Luner said. “There’s too much violence within the black community. As we created the film, we also created a logo which became the Queen’s King Apparel line, along with the Queen’s King song featured in the movie.”
Luner imagined a movement brought to life using music, film, art and honest discussions to stand up against black-on-black violence of all kinds. During the pre-release event, Luner presented a discussion panel with speakers from law enforcement, law makers, mothers who’ve lost children due to black-on-black violence, and activists to openly discuss solutions to the growing problem.
Mendell’s Rule
“Gun violence is the leading cause of death in children aged 14-25,” said Omorose Butler-Lebel, mother to 17-year-old Mendell Butler, who was shot and killed in 2018 in front of his apartment complex in Miramar. “Something 100% preventable is snatching our children.”
Bulter was murdered the day after his 17th birthday, and right before he was to attend Florida State University to become an attorney. Bulter-Lebel held her son as he bled out in the parking lot. Countless stories like Mendell’s are the reason Luner wanted to take a stand and offer words of encouragement, hope, and solutions.
“I was unaware of the severity of gun violence,” Butler-Lebel said. “Mendell is gone, I can’t get him back. So, I’m not in this fight for me. I’m doing it for your children.”
Butler-Lebel’s relentless fight led to Mendell’s Rule, which provides additional reward money to unsolved murders of children.
Law makers like Florida State Representative Dotie Joseph questioned why American children are less safe here than children in other countries. She believes that solutions are universal background checks and curbing access to high power weapons. “We need people in office that actually care,” Joseph said. “Our politicians sold us out.”
Sergeant Nicole Graves of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department has helped collect over 67 high-powered guns within the past six months.
“Residents must stay proactive and not react to the gun violence,” Graves said. “We need to find out the why. Why are y’all so angry? Why is it so easy to pick up a gun and totally disregard humanity. All of this is in vain if we don’t go out there and put action behind it.”
Each guest speaker on the panel felt the music and films of today is hurting our black community.
“Our movie has community action behind it,” said Tonias Exantus, COO of Lunerversal Films and Founder/CEO of Silent Cries, Inc., a non-profit organization for domestic violence. “We’re killing each other, killing our men and we’re killing our women because we’re divided.”
Changing Mindsets
Exantus and Luner want to change mindsets when it comes to violence. They believe disunity, toxic relationships and domestic violence only adds fuel.
“This is just the first season of Queen’s King and we’re going to expand more on it to where we can illustrate the true reality of what’s going on around us,” Exantus said. “And at the same time learn from it. It’s never going away so we can educate ourselves more and we can build out resources within our community.”
The Queen’s King apparel line features a black hoodie with their logo. During the movie premiere, each audience member wore it to show support for the movement. Luner said that wearing the hoodie shows that we all can come as one, regardless of the different challenges that we are dealing with in our lives.
After the premiere, audience members were left hanging and somewhat confused. Local film maker and founder of 2 Reel Kweenz, Lovely, hopes that the next few installments of Queen’s King will bring the cliffhanger ending some closure.
“I’ve been following Luner since his first film, Love Until it Hurts,” Lovely said. “He is someone trying to make a change. He has something to speak about: stopping the violence. The movie depicts royalty and having a certain standard of yourself. It was interesting, I have my own views as a film maker, but it takes a lot to get to this capacity.”
Queen’s King is more of a series than a film, and what debuted was the first three episodes. Along with Lunerversal Films first two movies, Love Until it Hurts and Bae Night, the remainder of Queen’s King can be streamed on Tubi or Amazon Prime.
