George C Wolfe recently garnered a lot of praise for his directorial venture in ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ and his next title for the streaming platform has got us all excited again. Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground productions have roped the 5-time Tony award winner for their latest biopic about gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin.
Bayard Rustin organised the 1963 march on Washington and was also given the Presidential medal of freedom in 2013. Dustin Lance Black who won the Academy Award and the Oscar for the best original screenplay in 2008 for ‘Milk’ will also be writing the script for this one. ‘Milk’ was the story of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk. Dustin Lance Black has been a vocal activist for gay civil rights himself and would therefore lend a great appeal to this project. Black’s most recent work ‘When We Rise’ was an eight-part mini-series about different LGBTQ+ movements in the USA. His speech at the Oscar highlighted the dilemma of being homosexual in a stringent society and how he overcame it with the help of his parents and upbringing.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom won a plethora of awards including that for George C Wolfe’s direction and this one is also set to be another riveting affair as it tells us about the story of a charismatic and defiant activist Bayard Rustin.
The Obama Productions was founded in 2018 and has quickly become a force to be reckoned with. Their first production ‘American factory’ won the academy award for the best documentary feature in 2019 and their latest documentary ‘Crip Camp’ has made it to the shortlist of documentaries for the Oscar list of 2021.