Colman Domingo is transforming into civil rights leader Bayard Rustin for a Netflix period piece biopic.
The “Euphoria” and “The Color Purple” Emmy winner portrays the “architect of 1963’s momentous March on Washington” during the 60th anniversary of the march. DGA Award and five-time Tony Award winner George C. Wolfe directs the eponymously titled “Rustin.”
The official synopsis for the Netflix film reads: Alongside giants like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin dared to imagine a different world and inspired a movement in a march toward freedom. He challenged authority and never apologized for who he was, what he believed, or who he desired. And he did not back down. He made history, and in turn, he was forgotten.
Chris Rock, Glynn Turman, Aml Ameen, Gus Halper, CCH Pounder, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Johnny Ramey, Michael Potts, Jeffrey Wright, and Audra McDonald also star alongside Domingo in the ensemble film.
The Obamas’ production company Higher Ground produces, along with director Wolfe, Bruce Cohen, and Higher Ground’s Tonia Davis. “Rustin” screened at Telluride and TIFF and went on to win audience awards at Heartland and MVFF. Director Wolfe received the Spotlight Award at MVFF, the inaugural Sherzum Award at the Hamptons Film Festival, and will be honored with the Impact Award at the upcoming Middleburg Film Festival.
Rustin marched alongside Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Ella Baker, and promoted non-violent protests. Rustin served as the president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, a civil rights organization in New York City, from 1966 to 1979. Later in life, Rustin worked for LGBTQ+ activism and brought attention to the AIDS crisis in conjunction with the NAACP. Rustin died in 1987, and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2013.
“Nobody knows anything about him, and he’s a phenomenal human being,” director/producer Wolfe told IndieWire. “So the first obligation is to make sure that the story is told correctly, and that the story is engaging and powerful. And then my next responsibility is to people it with amazing people.”
Wolfe reunited with “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” actor Domingo to lead the project, adding, “It was just you work on the script, you live inside the script, and you live inside the story, and you live inside of this, and then you go, ‘Oh, Colman’s perfect!’ There isn’t a passive character in the film. Everybody is operating from a place of extraordinary stakes. And so you want that dynamic at all times.”
“Rustin” premieres in select theaters November 3 and will be available to stream on Netflix November 17. Check out the trailer below.
