MGM Studios has released the first trailer for its upcoming biopic “Till,” which tells the chilling story of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy who was kidnapped, tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955.
The film, which opens in select theaters on October 14 and will be released in general on October 28, will tell the story of not only Emmett’s death, but also his mother’s courageous fight for justice.
“Till” will premiere at the 60th New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center on its opening weekend. The exact date has not yet been announced.
“I am incredibly proud and excited to premiere my film ‘Till’ at the 60th New York Film Festival. As a filmmaker, being hosted by NYFF for this particular feature film and having the opportunity to screen ‘Till’ for young people across the country is exciting,” said director Chinonye Chukwu. said in a statement.
Directed by Chukwu, the film also stars Whoopi Goldberg, Frankie Faison, Haley Bennett, and Sean Patrick Thomas.
The trailer, released Monday, shows Emmett’s mother (played by Danielle Deadwyler) fighting back tears as she says, “This was my son, Emmett Till.”
The clip then shows Emmett (played by Jalyn Hall) preparing for his visit to see his cousins.
“My son’s lynching has shown me that whatever happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be all of our business,” Emmett’s mother says in the trailer.
Carolyn Bryant Donham, then only Carolyn Bryant and 21 years old, accused Emmett of making inappropriate advances and obscene comments to her while working the cash register at her family’s store in Money, Mississippi, in August 1955.
Emmett, who was in town to visit relatives in Chicago, allegedly whistled at him, according to a cousin who witnessed the interaction. Such interaction violated the code of racist behavior in the Jim Crow-era South.
Donham told her husband, Roy Bryant, about the alleged encounter. Enraged that a black boy allegedly made advances on his white wife, Bryant and his half-brother John William Milam kidnapped the teen from his great-uncle’s house two nights later and subsequently beat him, shot him and dumped his body in a river.
Emmett’s body was discovered three days later.
After a murder trial, an all-white jury acquitted the men. Months later, they admitted their crimes in a magazine interview.
A woman, possibly Donham, identified Emmett to his killers, according to testimony in the case, prompting the arrest warrant.
The order was reported in the newspapers at the time, but was never carried out. The Leflore County sheriff had told reporters that he did not want to “bother” the woman, as she was the mother of two young children.
Earlier this month, dozens of protesters stormed a Raleigh, North Carolina, senior center where they thought Donham, now 80, might be in an attempt to come face-to-face with her.
The protesters shouted: “It’s time to face your demons. Get out,” after the decades-old arrest warrant was found in the case.
Emmett’s family and supporters again pushed for Donham’s arrest after the 70-year arrest warrant was issued against him. was found in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse in June.
Also earlier this month, a unpublished memoir obtained by the Associated Press he claimed that she was a victim just like Emmett because of how her life changed after the murder.
In the account written in “I am More Than A Wolf Whistle”, Donham claimed that she actually tried to help Emmett after her husband and half-brother brought the boy to her in the middle of the night to identify him.
“He wished Emmett no harm and could not prevent harm from happening to him as he did not know what was planned for him,” Donham, who is white, argued in the manuscript written by her daughter-in-law. “I tried to protect him by telling Roy that ‘He’s not the one. That is not him. Please take him home.’”
She claimed in the manuscript that Emmett actually identified himself after he was taken from his family’s home at gunpoint.