Director Ava DuVernay is set to write and direct a limited series about the Central Park Five – a group of teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of assaulting and raping investment banker Trisha Meili in 1989 – for Netflix.
Each of the five episodes will focus on a different teenager, charting their upbringing in Harlem to the wrongful convictions that landed them in jail for between six and 13 years.
The Central Park Five case involved five teenagers – Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise – who were wrongfully convicted of the rape of a jogger, Trisha Meili, in Manhattan’s Central Park in 1989. That same year, Donald Trump took out a full-page advertisement in four of the city’s major newspapers advocating for the return of the death penalty, stating he wanted the criminals “to be afraid”.
The project, which is due to air in 2018, is DuVernay’s first collaboration with Netflix since last year’s documentary 13th. That project, which earned the director an Academy Award nomination for best documentary feature, documented the criminal justice system in the United States.
“I had an extraordinary experience working with Netflix on 13th and am overjoyed to continue this exploration of the criminal justice system as a narrative project,” DuVernay said in a statement about the project. “The story of the men known as Central Park Five has riveted me for more than two decades. In their journey, we witness five innocent young men of color who were met with injustice at every turn – from coerced confessions to unjust incarceration to public calls for their execution by the man who would go on to be the president of the United States.”
The series will be executive produced by Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Skoll, Jonathan King, Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh alongside DuVernay, who worked with Winfrey on Selma and Own’s Queen Sugar, currently airing its second season.
Cindy Howland, vice-president of original content for Netflix, called the Central Park Five case “one of the most talked-about cases of our time”. She continued: “Ava’s passionate vision and masterful direction will bring the human stories behind the headlines to life in this series. After powerfully reframing the public conversation about criminality and injustice in 13th, Ava now turns a new lens to a case that exposes deep flaws in our criminal justice system.”
• This article was amended on 7 July 2017. An earlier version referred to the “rape and murder” of Trisha Meili; she was not murdered.
