Ben Child 

War Horse’s Jeremy Irvine to star in gay rights film Stonewall

Independence Day director Roland Emmerich to helm film about LGBT rights and the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York
  
  

Actor Jeremy Irvine
British actor Jeremy Irvine is to star in Roland Emmerich's historical drama Stonewall. Photograph: Jim Spellman/WireImage Photograph: Jim Spellman/WireImage

War Horse star Jeremy Irvine is to headline a film about the Stonewall riots in New York.

The historical drama, titled Stonewall, is a passion project for Roland Emmerich, the film-maker behind big-budget apocalyptic action movies such as Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012. Emmerich, who is gay, will tell the story of the 1969 riots at Stonewall Inn, in New York City's Greenwich Village, a mafia-owned bar popular with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The story will be told through the prism of one young man's political awakening, reports Deadline. The screenplay is by Jon Robin Baitz.

The titular bar was one of the few places in New York where members of the LGBT community could drink and dance in relative freedom. Police raided the club regularly, but usually early in the evening and following tip-offs to the owners. When a number of officers turned up at 1am on 28 June 1969, a riot ensued involving 500 to 600 people.

With the police forced into retreat, the riots signalled a new militancy on the part of the gay community to oppose raids and discrimination. New groups were formed to push for the rights of gay people, and within a year the first gay pride march had been staged in New York, eventually inspiring hundreds of similar events around the world.

Stonewall will begin production ahead of Emmerich's preparations for a sequel to 1996 sci-fi blockbuster Independence Day, which is due in July 2016.

 

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