2. Overview
• .The film was set in 1965, and
although the Civil rights act was
passed in 1964, racism and
discrimination was still extremely
common in parts of the south
which made it difficult for POC to
vote. The film depicts the real life
events and the struggle for
suffrage in Alabama and how
DR. Martin Luther King Jr. and
his followers went on a march
from Selma to Montgomery
Selma
3. Production Details
• A lot of filming took place in Georgia,
in Atlanta, Newton county and
Rockdale county
• Then the scenes around the march
were shot in Selma, Alabama on the
actual Edmund Pettus Bridge and
Montgomery
• Many of King's speeches were
actually copyrighted which meant
Duverney had to rewrite some of his
speeches in order to avoid breaching
copyright laws
Selma
4. Film Festivals
• Berlinale Special Galas section
of the 65th Berlin International
Film Festival - 2015
• Premiered at the American Film
Institute Festival (AFI) - 2014
• It was then re-released on March
20th 2015 in honour of the 50th
anniversary of the march
Selma
5. Critical responses
• There was a lot of praise directed at Duverney
(the director) and Oyelowo’s (Dr. Luther King Jr.)
performance. However this was also met by
some criticism accusing historical inaccuracies.
• People were offended that all white people were
painted as the villains such as the Sheriff (Jim
Clark), and the Alabama government (George
Wallace), when in reality there were plenty of
sympathetic white characters such as James
Reeb and Viola Liuzzo who were violently killed
by white supremacists for their activism
• “The history may be a little skewed, and the
speeches necessarily circumlocutionary, but
Oyelowo keeps our attention focused on the real
story in triumphant fashion.” - Mark Kermode
Selma
6. My Critical response
• I personally believe that this movie depicts
the Selma to Montgomery march
accurately as they use all the real names
of the people and even have ‘logs’ of what
Dr. Martin Luther King was doing each day
from the FBI wire taps . At the end of the
film as Dr. MLK Jr. is giving his speech
outside the Montgomery capitol, it turns
into an almost documentary style as it
records each character and tells you their
names, and what they go on to do in the
future. I feel this really enforces the fact
that this was a real story and not just some
story they put together for a movie plot.
Selma
