SOON
>based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by former Playboy writer Alex Haley, starred Burton as Kunta Kinte and followed the story of one family’s horrific journey from African royalty to chattel slavery to freedom in segregated Tennessee.
>“Forgive me if this day becomes slightly emotional for me,” Burton said at the screening, which was hosted by Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. “Being here in this house, at this particular time in history. This is a moment.”
>One of the new episodes is helmed by director Mario Van Peebles. His son Mandela plays the biracial son of a slave and a white plantation owner, who is shot in the back while attempting to escape the plantation.
>Van Peebles told THR that the scene is reminiscent of America’s current problem with over-policing.
>“It wasn’t something I was braced to do,” Van Peebles told the outlet. “The way we shot the assassination and the way it reads is ultimately so unfortunately timeless. It’s going to be hard to watch this for some people — especially me as a parent — and not think about where we are now.”
>One particular incident while shooting the series stuck with Kirby, who plays Kunta Kinte in the remake, during the filming of a scene in which he is beaten and called a racial epithet.
>“[A]t the end of it, [the actor] is in tears, and he apologizes to me. And that was beautiful,” Kirby recalled to THR. “There is a beautiful hope that comes out of that, that even as an actor that he feels the need to apologize just speaks volumes of the times that we’re living in right now. Yes, racism still exists
>“I will be talking it up,” Sharpton told THR. “If we can create the conversation, [Roots] will not only get a wide viewership, it will evolve the discussions about race — hopefully, from yelling at each other to really talking about the pain and what we’re going to do in the post-Obama era.”
breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2016/05/25/roots-reboot-remade-black-lives-matter-era/
