James’ SpringHill has started production on ‘Dreamland: The Rise and Fall of Black Wall Street,’ with Bad Rap’s Salima Koroma directing.
The SpringHill Company and CNN Films have partnered to produce Dreamland: The Rise and Fall of Black Wall Street, a documentary about the history of Black Wall Street ahead of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.
In June, the NBA star’s SpringHill Company unveiled the upcoming project to mark the centennial of the violent events of the summer of 1921 in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. CNN Films will be the linear TV distributor for the feature across North America, with HBO Max acquiring streaming rights to the film.
“CNN Films could not be more proud to partner with The SpringHill Company for this long-overdue recognition of the tragedy of what happened in Greenwood, and to contribute to the reconciliation that comes with the acknowledgement of history,” Amy Entelis, executive vp for talent and content development for CNN Worldwide, said of the partnership with SpringHill.
The documentary about a wealthy section of the Oklahoma city known as Black Wall Street will lead up to the violent events of 1921 that resulted in the murder of hundreds of the city’s African American residents. Dreamland is directed and produced by Bad Rap’s Salima Koroma, and executive produced by James, Maverick Carter, Jamal Henderson, and Philip Byron of The SpringHill Company, and Amy Entelis and Courtney Sexton of CNN Films.
The Dreamland documentary will use a mix of archival media, contemporary interviews and original letters and diary entries. The producers added they will use footage of a near-century search for physical evidence of the violent murder of African Americans.
SpringHill and CNN Films expect the documentary to be completed in early 2021. Jamila Jordan-Theus and Patrick Altema of SpringHill are co-executive producers for the film.
“With the lack of historic journalism around ‘Black Wall Street’ and the Tulsa Massacre of 1921, we are honored to be partnered with CNN, which has a long-standing record of credible and groundbreaking journalism,” Jamal Henderson, SpringHill’s chief content officer, said in a statement.
The Dreamland partnership deal was negotiated by Josh Tarnow, vp for business and legal affairs at SpringHill, and Stacey Wolf, senior vp of business affairs and Kelly MacLanahan, assistant general counsel at CNN Worldwide, for CNN Films.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
