With the production of the all-black cast remake of Steel Magnolias wrapping up (the first trailer debuted last night), shooting is underway for another all-black cast Lifetime TV movie tiled Abducted: The Carlina White Story, which stars Aunjanue Ellis, Keke Palmer, and Sherri Shepherd in the true story of Carlina White (Palmer), who after being abducted as an infant from a New York hospital, solved her own kidnapping and reunited with her biological parents 23 years later.

Vondie Curtis Hall is directing the production which started last week in Vancouver, soon after we announced it here.

ith the movie slated to air later this year. The case is reported to be the first known infant abduction from a New York hospital.

In August of 1987, new parents Joy White (Shepherd) and Carl Tyson (Roger Cross, 24) took their 19-day old daughter Carlina to Harlem Hospital in New York with a high fever. Ann Pettway (Ellis), who had suffered a series of miscarriages and was desperate for a child of her own, posed as a hospital nurse and befriended Carlina’s parents, even offering to watch over their daughter. But shortly after Carlina was admitted, Pettway removed the child’s IV line, placed her in an oversized handbag, and walked out of the hospital with Carlina hidden from view. While Joy and Carl desperately searched for their daughter over the years, Pettway was raising Carlina as Nejdra “Netty” Nance in Bridgeport, Connecticut – a mere 45 miles from New York City. As Carlina grew older she began to suspect Pettway was not her birth mother and launched her own investigation. After contacting the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Carlina was reunited with her biological parents in January 2011.

Check out a few stills of the production above and below, featuring Palmer, Shepherd and Roger Cross.