Breaking Baz: The Obamas, George C. Wolfe & ‘Candyman’ Star Colman Domingo Ensure Civil Rights Leader Bayard Rustin’s Rightful Place In History
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: Filmmaker George C. Wolfe was not interested in doing what he termed “icon crap” in his movie Rustin, about the multi-layered life of Bayard Rustin, regarded as one of the most influential organizers of the Civil Rights Movement and the architect of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place 60 years ago this week. “You have to have an extraordinary degree of irreverence and approach it like, ‘This is a human being.’ Because if you’re doing icon crap, it is very easy for you to fall into boring or reverential, and we have statues for that,” said Wolfe (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks) of his film that stars Colman Domingo (Euphoria, Candyman, Fear the Walking Dead) as the man who often was at Dr.
Martin Luther King’s side. Many have opined that Rustin has been neglected by history. Ten years ago, when President Barack Obama awarded Rustin the nation’s highest civilian honor — the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously — he noted that Rustin was “denied his rightful place in history because he was openly gay,” and he implored people to honor Rustin’s memory by “taking our place in his march towards true equality, no matter who we are or who we love.” Fitting, then, that Rustin should be the first feature from Michelle and Barack Obama’s Higher Ground Productions, which has its deal at Netflix.
Bruce Cohen and Tonia Davis produced Rustin, with the Obamas credited as executive producers along with David Permut, Alex G.
Scott, Daniel Sladek, Chris Taaffe and Mark R. Wright. Rustin will screen September 13 at TIFF – and who knows where else it may pop up before then – and is scheduled to be released in theaters on November 3.
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