Till was a teenage Black boy from Chicago who was visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta in 1955 when he was kidnapped and murdered by two white men after reportedly whistling at a white woman. Till’s murder was met with international press and encouraged the impending Civil Rights Movement.
The film will be based on the book “Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America,” which was co-written by Till’s late mother, Mamie Till-Mobley and award-winning journalist Christopher Benson, who is also slated to be a producer for the film. The book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2004.
The biopic comes after two documentaries about Till's life, which were both released in 2003, The Murder Of Emmett Till from PBS's American Experience docuseries and Keith Beauchamp’s The Untold Story Of Emmett Louis Till. Other producers for the film include Luke Boyce, Brett Hays and Jen Shelby. Ebert and Nate Kohn are executive producing.
“The full Emmett Till story needs to be told now and told well as a narrative for our times, given all that is happening on American streets today and Shatterglass Films are the people to tell it,” Ebert told Variety.
“The full Emmett Till story needs to be told now and told well as a narrative for our times, given all that is happening on American streets today and Shatterglass Films are the people to tell it,” Ebert told Variety.
The biopic will be filmed in Chicago, the Mississippi Delta and Central Illinois in 2016.
Deonna Anderson is an Oregon-based visual journalist and editorial assistant at For Harriet. Connect with her @iamDEONNA.
