Ava DuVernay is a fairly important part of the African-American cinematic movement currently going on in the industry (Alongside Jordan Peele, Barry Jenkins, Ryan Coogler, Boots Riley). If anything, she may have kick-started this new-wave with 2011’s “Middle of Nowhere,” and then catapulted it with 2014’s exhilarating “Selma.” However, ever since then? A by-the-book but neverthless mandatory doc about America’s fascination with black incarceration titled ”13th” and then the horrendous children-fantasy adaptation of “A Wrinkle in Time.”
Her attempt at a mini-comeback comes with “When They See Us,” which is supposed to premiere as a five-part mini-series on Netflix this coming May 31st. It’ll be a reenactment of the 1989 Central Park Jogger case.
Ken and Sarah Burns‘ doc on the same story, titled “The Central Park Five,” was a well-done but all-too-safe account of the events.
The case had to do with the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, in NYC’S Central Park, which led to the arrest of five young black men— Anton McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise and Yusef Salaam. As it turns out, they were wrongly prosecuted and falsely imprisoned