‘PREMIERE: Selma - Ava DuVernay’

The young Baptist minister and civil rights campaigner Dr Martin Luther King has recently been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize when he joins the activists who organize opposition against racial discrimination in the town of Selma. In the summer of 1965, Afro-Americans already have a formal right to vote, but in the South the enforcement of this right is impeded by every available trick. Black people are still regarded as second class citizens and subjected to everyday racism. Martin Luther King struggles in vain to convince President Lyndon B Johnson of the urgency of his cause and finds himself in conflict with trigger-happy police and the ultra conservative Governor of Alabama. The fight for equal rights, which comes to a head in the March on Washington, throws the country into turmoil.
In her third feature film Ava DuVernay recounts a defining episode in the life of the legendary civil rights campaigner. The protests which he led galvanized the American public and ultimately led to President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act. Alongside Oprah Winfrey, who also plays a supporting role in the film, Brad Pitt is one of the producers.