Garcelle Beauvais is on a mission to raise awareness about missing Black girls.
She executive produced and leads the cast of the new Lifetime thriller Taken at a Truck Stop: A Black Girl Missing Movie — which premieres tonight.
Beauvais (Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) portrays Kai, a truck driver and business owner, who plays a key role in the manhunt when her autistic niece Toy (played by Sierra Sidwell) is abducted by an online predator.
When law enforcement reaches a dead end, Kai launches a grassroots rescue mission with help from the trucking community.
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At the film’s red carpet premiere on Oct. 16 in Los Angeles, Beauvais said she hopes the movie raises awareness about the lack of media coverage focused on missing women and girls of color.
“When Black and Brown people go missing, we want the same urgency, the same compassion, the same validation,” she told Urban Hollywood 411.
Sidwell described the film shoot as “intense,” and revealed there were days when she spent “12 hours” in the trunk of a car. Still, she told us she gained valuable experience from Beauvais and Marci T House (Godzilla and Tribal), who plays her mother.
“Working alongside Marci and Garcelle, it couldn’t have been a better environment for me because I connected with them right away,” Sidwell stated.
Inspired by real events, Taken at a Truck Stop is the third installment in Lifetime’s “Black Girl Missing” franchise. Beauvais executive produced all three films.
“I want to continue doing these movies, so we continue talking about this until we don’t have to talk about it anymore,” she said.
According to the Black and Missing Foundation, 563,389 people were reporting missing in the U.S. in 2023, the last full year of statistics the organization analyzed.
Of those reported missing, 40 percent were African American. Yet the organization notes missing Black people are often “underreported in the news.”
House said the lack of media coverage given to missing Black girls is glaring.
“You can’t help but see the disparity, when you see the Amber Alerts and things like that. There aren’t a lot of people that look like us, but there are plenty of us missing,” she told us.
The 2023 film Black Girl Missing starring Taylor Mosby, Linda Park and Iyana Halley was the first movie in Lifetime’s franchise, which aired in conjunction with the network’s Stop Violence Against Women campaign.
It was followed by HBCU: A Black Girl Missing Movie featuring Naturi Naughton. The movie debuted in 2024, and earlier this year earned Naughton a best actress in a television movie NAACP Image Award.
The new film is produced by Navid Soofi for PF Maple Productions in association with Studio TF1 America. In addition to Beauvais, Jason Egenberg and Gordon Gilbertson are executive producers.
Kailey Spear and Sam Spear directed the movie from a script by Germaine Hill, Francesca Gailes and Jacqueline J. Gailes.
Taken at a Truck Stop: A Black Girl Missing Movie premieres Oct. 25 at 8/7c on Lifetime.
The interview with Sierra Sidwell is below:
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