Amazon Studios has obtained a voter suppression documentary produced by Stacey Abrams.
What We Know
- Amazon has just acquired the worldwide rights to an upcoming documentary about voter suppression produced by politician, Stacey Abrams.
- The untitled documentary from production company Story Syndicate will be directed by Oscar-nominated filmmakers Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés and will stream on Amazon Prime Video after its initial release, according to NBC News.
- Abrams will serve as co-producer on the project along with Garbus and Cortés and be featured in the film.
- “It’s a monster movie where you think you’ve mortally wounded the beast, but it keeps rearing its ugly head, as last week’s primary in Georgia so painfully demonstrated. And nothing less than democracy is at stake,” Garbus and Cortés said in a statement.
- The film will focus on the history of voter suppression from the civil rights movement in the 1960s all the way to the present. For Abrams who made history by becoming the first African American woman nominated for governor by a major party when she became the Democratic nominee in Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial election, this subject hit close to home.
- Abrams narrowly lost to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who refused to resign as secretary of state while campaigning and who she believes manipulated the election system through acts of voter suppression.
- While many believe she was robbed of her chance to be governor, Abrams used her experiences as an impetus to find Fair Fight 2020, an initiative that seeks to educate voters about their rights and enlighten them ln what they can do to aid the fight against voter suppression.
- “Raising the alarm about voter suppression is critical to the integrity of our democracy,” Abrams said about the documentary. “Justice in our criminal justice system and the sacred right to vote are not equal for all Americans and we must find a way to change these systematic inequalities.”
- Abrams’ contributions to the documentary are “timely” and “important,” Jennifer Salke, the head of Amazon Studios, said in a statement.
The documentary is slated for release prior to the presidential election in November.
