A new trailer has debuted for the upcoming release of the Venice Film Festival and NYFF selection, The Rape of Recy Taylor.
It comes with Tuesday’s news that The Orchard has acquired the digital rights to the film.
“The Rape of Recy is a profoundly moving, incredibly important film that showcases all of the elements of great nonfiction cinema. The Orchard is incredibly proud to be working with the powerhouse director who is Nancy Buirski to get this film to audiences across all platforms,” said Danielle DiGiacomo, VP of Acquisitions at The Orchard.
“I’ve admired their film selection – fiction and non-fiction – for a very long time,” she said. “Their taste and their reputation for transparency is a benchmark for all distributors. I’m overjoyed to know our film is one of The Orchard’s and will be seen on so many platforms. The brave Recy Taylor deserves no less!” said director Nancy Buirski.
The film is the true story of a 24-year-old wife and mother who was gang-raped in Alabama by six white men in 1944. The doc 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 was kidnapped after leaving church and raped by the men. Despite two of them men admitting the rape to authorities, they weren’t charged.
When she spoke up against her attackers, it putting Taylor’s life and that of her family’s in danger. Her home was even firebombed by white supremacists. All of this attracted the attention of the NAACP and Rosa Parks, who was the organization’s chief investigator and activist against sexual assaults against black women. Taylor’s case is thought to be an early spark of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.
It took 70 years for Taylor to get an apology from the state of Alabama for her rapists not being prosecuted.
Watch the new trailer below: