‘Everything’s Gonna Be All White,’ ‘Uprooted’ Filmmakers Struggled to Get Funding. Then George Floyd Died

variety.com:

Uprooted,” which investigates the 1986 unsolved hanging death of Keith Warren, a 19-year-old Black man from Silver Spring, Md.

But nobody wanted the project. Then, after George Floyd was murdered in May 2020, Speaks and McDonough began receiving phone calls.“Suddenly people came out of the woodwork and were interested and wanted to have a conversation about making the series,” Speaks recalls. “We started getting interest from people – some people who we had already pitched the story to.

It’s interesting that it took that event for people to understand that our (Black) stories matter.” The three-part docuseries is one of several nonfiction offerings bowing during Black History Month, including Showtime’s “Everything’s Gonna Be All White” and “Lincoln’s Dilemma” on Apple TV Plus. “Uprooted,” which is debuting under Discovery Plus’ nascent “Black Voices” hub on Feb.

18, follows Warren’s sister Sherri and her 35-year fight against systemic corruption to find out what really happened to her brother.“During the years we spent pitching this story to networks and platforms, one of the comments that people would always make was, ‘What’s the relevance?’” says Speaks. “If you take this story from the standpoint of families, Black families in particular, not being able to find justice and not feeling valued, that’s something that still exists today.