The story of civil rights icon Rosa Parks is headed to theaters for what could be the first time, according to Deadline. Titled Rosa, the script will be written by Charlie Kessler and Hamid Torabpour and will be produced by Winter State Entertainment. The film will chronicle the first 24 hours after Parks’ well-documented arrest on December 1, 1955. Rosa is being fast-tracked go into production and be released in 2019. Deadline says, “The project will also recognize the contributions to the civil rights movement that the civil rights advocate/activist made both before and after the racist incident in Alabama. A portion of the proceeds from the film will be donated to The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development.”
Jeanne Theoharis, a Brooklyn College professor whose book, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, won a 2014 NAACP Image Award, will be a consulting producer on the film. Although this film would be the first to bring the story of Rosa Parks to theaters, it is not the first autobiographical film about the civil rights activist. Academy Award-nominated actress Angela Bassett stepped into Parks’ shoes in television movie The Rosa Parks Story, which was directed by Julie Dash. Dash, in collaboration with Invisible Pictures, is also working on a film that will document the years prior to Parks’ arrest and the act of civil disobedience called At The Dark End Of The Street.
“While most Americans have heard of Rosa Parks, the details of what happened that on the night she was arrested, and her lifetime of political courage and activism, are largely unknown,” Theoharis told Deadline. “The real story of Rosa Parks is far different, and even more inspiring and relevant for our times than the tale most children learn in school.”
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