by Jeroslyn JoVonn
November 5, 2025
A documentary and scripted venture on the late political activist Assata Shakur are in improvement, with Angela Davis serving as govt producer.
Following the current passing of Assata Shakur, filmmakers Giselle and Stephen Bailey have introduced they’re growing a documentary and scripted venture on the famend political activist.
The sister-and-brother filmmaking duo behind HBO’s Seen & Heard: The Historical past of Black Tv will produce and co-direct the documentary below their banner, Indigo Movies, with authorization from Shakur’s daughter, Kakuya Shakur, Selection studies. Civil rights lawyer Lennox Hinds, who represented Shakur, has granted the filmmakers unique entry, with political activist, professor, and writer Angela Davis becoming a member of as govt producer.
“Assata’s story is essential to all People because it reveals the powers that divide us and our capability to heal,” Giselle and Stephen Bailey mentioned in an announcement.
The announcement comes after Shakur’s passing on Sept. 25 in Havana, Cuba, the place she had lived in political asylum since escaping jail in 1979. Born Joanne Chesimard and a member of the Black Liberation Military, Shakur was convicted in 1977 for the 1973 demise of Trooper Werner Foerster throughout a New Jersey Turnpike visitors cease that left two lifeless and Shakur wounded.
Sentenced to life, she escaped jail in 1979 with assist from BLA members and had been a fugitive, later showing on the FBI’s high 10 most-wanted terrorists listing in 2013. Supporters argue her conviction was based mostly on weak proof, noting no gunpowder residue on her palms, lack of fingerprints on the homicide weapon, and her accidents sustained whereas allegedly surrendering, together with acquittals or dismissals of different fees towards her.
Within the 2014 version of Assata: An Autobiography, Angela Davis wrote a foreword praising Shakur as a “compassionate human being dedicated to justice” and warned that the FBI aimed “to frighten folks concerned in struggles at this time.”
The 12 months prior, Davis known as Shakur “harmless” and mentioned her case highlighted the police brutality and racism she and her friends confronted on the time.
“Forty years appears as if it have been a very long time in the past; nonetheless, firstly of the twenty first century, we’re nonetheless coping with the exact same points – police violence, healthcare, training, folks in jail, and so forth,” Davis mentioned. “Folks actually don’t know the main points and will not be conscious of the extent to which [Shakur] was focused by the FBI and the COINTEL programme.”
Now, with each a documentary and a scripted venture in improvement, Assata Shakur’s story and legacy are set to succeed in a brand new technology of fact seekers.
RELATED CONTENT: New Jersey’s Misplaced Focus: 77-Yr-Outdated Assata Shakur Tops The State’s Most Needed Checklist
