The upcoming new film from documentary master Ken Burns, titled, The Central Park Five, which Burns co-directed with his daughter Sarah Burns, and his son-in-law David McMahon, had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
A quick recap…
The documentary, a tale of racial injustice, examines the case of the Central Park rape, in the late 1980s, that triggered strong emotions in New Yorkers, and the sensational media storm across the US that followed.
Five black and Latino teenagers were arrested and convicted for the brutal rape and assault of Tricia Meili, only to be released after the real attacker confessed in 2002.
As we noted recently, the film's producers were hit with a lawsuit by the city of New York, who want to look at outtakes and unused interview footage from the film, that they believe could assist them in defending a still pending $50 million federal lawsuit filed by the defendents nine years ago.
Burns said that it was ironic that the city would issue the subpeonas now, since the city has spent years turning down his requests for interviews, which would have explained their actions in their defense, which he would've included in the film.
Naturally, the filmmakers are fighting the subpoena.
The film made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where Burns expressed his hopes that the film gets a theatrical release (before heading to PBS in 2013) unlike his past documentaries, stating, "We want to release it theatrically because the running time makes it managable and there's something urgent about it."
Movieline has an exclusive first look at the film's official poster, which tells the story of injustice in a simple image showing the imbalanced scales of justice, in black and white, with the title of the film in a shade of grey.
Check it out below; the film's trailer is underneath: