For Us TV founder Svetlana Chernienko has always gravitated toward the arts. The Canadian native grew up in the film industry. Her mom is a celebrity makeup artist on movie sets, and her dad is a fashion photographer. This inspired Chernienko to pursue both modeling and acting.
Fast forward, she created a streaming platform called For Us TV to add more positive images of Black excellence.
Chernienko shared what shows we can expect to see on the streaming platform in Fall 2023.
What shows are you looking to put on For Us TV?
I recently did a lot of licensing to be able to have a lot of shows and movies that we don’t see out there. I bought some amazing licensing for documentaries from our Black community that I didn’t even know existed. Amazing stories, some low budget, some in between, but I was pleasantly surprised that there’s great content that other platforms aren’t taking, but I’m watching saying, ” I’m going to do my research and see what’s there.” Amazing documentaries, TV series, and movies that we’re not seeing, but think about it as a melting pot.
We’re going to have Black films, people from the Latin X community, South Asian communities, you’re going to have the Indian community and Indigenous people. There are so many incredible stories from the LGBTQ+ community. We’re in the development of a show for the LGBTQ+ community, but the BIPOC LGBTQ+ community. I always wanted to create a show, a talk show based on mental health. We’re currently in pre-production for “The Real Svetlana Show,” and it’s going to be filmed in New York. We’re going to have celebrity guests, as well as everyday people to share their journeys and their stories in the BIPOC community when it comes to mental health.
What do you want people to feel when they’re using the streaming platform?
In our community, we’re very marginalized. We have a lot of issues that we go through that we don’t speak about but we show it. Growing up having a Black dad and a White mom, in the Black community, we’re always seen in such a negative light, even when people are filming or creating content. Even when people are going to be submitting content to me, I’m going to be looking for things that put us in a better position and show us in a better light. Not the fighting, spitting on each other types of reality shows or pulling hair and punching each other.
I don’t want any of that content. I think now we need to show each other in the way that we want to be viewed by the public because the non-Black community and the non-BIPOC community have a tainted view of who we are because we’ve allowed that to happen. I’m hoping with this we can teach the non-BIPOC community about our community, how beautiful and rich our culture is, and how intelligent we are.
