Spanning several decades, the film shows that while many things have changed in our world, “The Talk” has remained a grim rite of passage for most black Americans for too many generations. The film features intimate moments where black parents of various eras and social classes attempt to prepare their sons and daughters for the difficulties and dangers of growing up black in America. It ends with a call for society as a whole to be part of a larger conversation about racial bias, in hopes that one day, black families no longer have to have “The Talk.”

The phrase “The Talk” in mass American culture usually refers to the awkward conversation parents have with their teens about sex. But in black homes, families giving the “The Talk” usually means discussing with children how being black will affect their lives, from how to deal with hearing racial slurs, to overcoming discrimination to how they should behave during interactions with the police to avoid dangerous or deadly outcomes.

Also relevant is the re-emergence of race as a point of debate in America with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement to stop police violence against unarmed black citizens as well as the overall racial and societal tensions that have surfaced after the 2016 US presidential election.

The casting for this film was both challenging and rewarding, and we worked with a black-owned casting company to ensure it was right. Several major factors made the casting of this film unique. The first was the time periods. Since the film spans several decades from the 1950s until today, we had to carefully cast actors with the right features for styling based on each period. The second major consideration was versatility, since we wanted to show that “The Talk” happens in black families of all kinds, despite social class or geographical location. Most importantly, we carefully paired each parent-child, casting strong performers whose skill level goes above and beyond commercial acting. Black women continue to persevere the intersectionality of race and gender in society and since P&G & MBIB has always shown support for Moms, part of the brief was to make our protagonist throughout the film a woman.