Roger Ross Williams Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Selome Hailu Karis Jagger and Fabienne Toback have entered a first look deal with Lionsgate Television. Under the deal, they will develop and produce unscripted and documentary programming under their production banner Hey Sistah Productions. Lionsgate’s Pilgrim Media Group, which focuses on unscripted programming, will provide development support and serve as production services entity for sold projects.     Jagger and Toback are best known for producing “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America,” a Netflix documentary series based on Dr. Jessica Harris’ book of the same name. The series follows food writer Stephen Satterfield on a culinary journey alongside chefs, historians and activists that celebrates the courage, artistry and resourcefulness of the African American people.

Clayton Gutzmore Civil rights attorney Ben Crump commanded the attention of the audience inside the New World Center Performance Hall in Miami Beach for the kickoff to the 2022 American Black Film Festival on Wed. June 15, where he took the stage to introduce “Civil,” the upcoming Netflix documentary about his life and work.“I keep getting asked, ‘Why did I do this?’ Crump recounted.

La La Land, instead of its intended recipient, Barry Jenkins’s queer coming-of-age tale Moonlight. What followed were among the most excruciating scenes ever broadcast on live TV, as florid speeches gave way to the realisation that there had been a colossal mistake.

EXCLUSIVE: Matthew Carnahan (House of Lies), Emmy nominee Nadia Hallgren (Becoming), and Ben Crump are developing the legal series Stokes, based on Crump’s life and work as a civil rights attorney. The series will also follow Crump and his team as they travel the country fighting to change the problems within the justice system.

EXCLUSIVE: Roberta Colindrez will star opposite Gael Garcia Bernal in his Amazon movie about “The Liberace of Lucha Libre”, Cassandro. 

Hulu has landed the rights to the docuseries The 1619 Project, based on materials from Nikole Hannah-Jones' acclaimed special issue of The New York Times Magazine which examines the impact of slavery on American history.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterNetflix has ordered a documentary feature based on the life and career of civil rights attorney Ben Crump, Variety has learned.The yet-to-be-titled documentary will be directed and produced by Nadia Hallgren, who recently received two Emmy nominations for her work on Netflix’s Michelle Obama documentary “Becoming.” Kenya Barris will produce via Khalabo Ink Society, while Roger Ross Williams will produce under his One Story Up Productions banner.

Anthony D'Alessandro Editorial Director/Box Office EditorEXCLUSIVE: Gael García Bernal will don the mask and the tights of Cassandro, an independent feature from Oscar winning and two-time Emmy nominee filmmaker Roger Ross Williams.Cassandro tells the true story of Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso who rises to international stardom after he creates the “exotico” character Cassandro, the “Liberace of Lucha Libre,” and in the process upends not just the macho wrestling world

Peter White Television EditorBetween The World and Me, the stage show based on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ New York Times bestseller is getting a television adaptation at HBO.The premium cable network is adapting the show and book to air as a special event this fall.It will be directed by Apollo Theater Executive Producer Kamilah Forbes and exec produced by Coates and Susan Kelechi Watson (This Is Us).

Of the many music documentaries that were entered in the Documentary Feature category for the 92nd Academy Awards, just one is still in the running -- The Apollo, a look at the legendary Harlem theater. It was on the shortlist of 15 films that are still in contention for that award that was released yesterday (Dec.