You wouldn’t think making a movie about one of the most important moments in the Civil Rights struggle in the US would be that difficult to get off the ground, but Selma faced a massive struggle. Even with Lee Daniels directing and a high profile cast attached (including Hugh Jackman and others), it couldn’t get funding).

However now it’s finally happened, with Ava DuVernay directing and David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Cuba Gooding Jr., Alessandro Nivola, Giovanni Ribisi Common, Carmen Ejogo, Lorraine Toussaint, Tim Roth, and Oprah Winfrey starring.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘SELMA is the story of a movement. The film chronicles the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement. Director Ava DuVernay’s SELMA tells the story of how the revered leader and visionary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and his brothers and sisters in the movement prompted change that forever altered history.’

Selma opens in a few US cinemas on December 25th, 2014, and will go wide in early January. A February 6th UK release is planned. [Read more…]