11 Sep Deadline | ‘The Rape Of Recy Taylor’: First-Look At Nancy Buirski’s New Doc – Venice

EXCLUSIVE: Nancy Buirski, the director of By Sidney Lumet and The Loving Story, is headed to the Venice Film Festival with her latest project, The Rape Of Recy Taylor. The documentary about a woman who defied the times to stand up against the physical abuse of black women in the 1940s south, is running in the Horizons section and screens next week. It will have its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival in October. See a first-look clip above.

This 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 spoke up against her attackers, putting her life and that of her family’s in danger. Her plight attracted the attention of the NAACP and its chief investigator, Rosa Parks.

Taylor’s story dovetails with Buirski’s 2011 The Loving Story — which aired on HBO and became the basis for Jeff Nichols’ Oscar-nominated Loving last year. It detailed the Supreme Court case that overturned all anti-miscegenation statutes in the country — a ruling came 10 years after Taylor’s attack.

Buirski’s Augusta Films produces Recy Taylor in co-production with Transform Films and in association with Artemis Rising and Matador Content. Wide House has international sales. ICM Partners is repping domestic sales.