Selma director Ava DuVernay has had a lot of success in the past working with real-life stories – especially prison documentary 13th, which was Oscar nominated. She's back with both the real world and Netflix for a new miniseries about the Central Park Five.
The case focused on five men, teenagers at the time – Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise – who were accused of a brutal gang rape in Central Park in 1989. With failures of justice and then-businessman Donald Trump calling for New York to re-instate the death penalty, they ended up convicted and serving jail time until they were freed in 2002 via new DNA evidence. Each of the five episodes of the miniseries will introduce one of the men and look at the critical problems with their case.
"The story of the men known as the Central Park Five has riveted me for more than two decades," says DuVernay. "In their journey, we witness five innocent young men of color who were met with injustice at every turn – from coerced confessions to unjust incarceration to public calls for their execution by the man who would go on to be the president of the United States."
DuVernay already has TV series Queen Sugar on in the US and her next film, Disney's A Wrinkle In Time is due out on 23 March next year.
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