Nancy Buirski, the director of the Cannes documentary By Sidney Lumet and The Loving Story, which aired on HBO and became the basis for Jeff Nichols’ Cannes-bound pic Loving, has found her next project. She will direct and produce The Rape Of Recy Taylor, the true story of a 24-year-old wife and mother who was gang raped in Alabama by seven white men in 1944.
Recy Taylor’s story highlights the black women who waged war to take back their bodies and their dignity, and by speaking up helped inspire the civil rights movement that was to come. Taylor spoke up against her attackers, putting her life and that of her family’s in danger. Her plight attracted the attention of the NAACP and its chief investigator, Rosa Parks. Taylor’s story dovetails with Buirski’s The Loving Story, which detailed the Supreme Court case that overturned all anti-miscegenation statutes in the country. That ruling came 10 years after Taylor’s attack.
Buirski’s Augusta Films will produce Recy Taylor with Beth Hubbard. Laurens Grant is a consulting producer and At The Dark End Of The Street author Danielle McGuire will also consult. Emma Tillinger Kosskoff is executive producer. Augusta is in talks to reteam with HBO Documentary Films on the project, which will be produced in association with Transform Films (Newtown).
The news comes as Buirski preps the bow of By Sidney Lumet at Tribeca on Friday. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Jonathan Demme, Amy Ryan, Treat Williams and Jenny Lumet. The docu will air on PBS’ American Masters later this year.
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