Watch the stunning new trailer for Dustin Lance Black’s ‘When We Rise’
By Will Stroude
With just six weeks to go until the premiere of When We Rise, another goose-bump-inducing trailer for the upcoming LGBT docudrama has been released.
Produced by Attitude cover star Dustin Lance Black and Gus Van Sant – the Oscar-winning duo behind 2009’s Harvey Milk biopic Milk – the new eight-hour mini-series charts the struggle of four LGBT+ activists over five decades and is set to premiere in the US on February 27 on ABC.
The series is based in part on a memoir of the same name released earlier this year by renowned LGBT and AIDS activist Cleve Jones and stars a host of big-names including The Hurt Locker’s Guy Pearce, Six Feet Under’s Rachel Griffiths, The Wire’s Michael K. Williams, and the one and only Whoopi Goldberg.
Soundtracked by Andra Day’s Grammy-nominated ‘Rise Up’, the latest trailer offers another powerful preview of the series which looks set to be the most important LGBT television event of the year.
In an exclusive interview in Attitude’s February issue – available to download now and in shops now – Dustin Lance Black reveals more about the show and explains why it’s taken on even more significance in the wake of last year’s incredible political upheaval in the US.
“We’re in one right now, a worldwide backlash where people are talking about building walls and closing borders instead of understanding and embracing their neighbour,” Black says.
“I hope to inspire a new generation to stand up and fight back and protect what we have in a moment of darkness like this.”
The 42-year-old, who is engaged with British Olympic diving star Tom Daley, adds that the LGBT community has long been denied portrayals of its historic fight by the mainstream media – something he’s keen to help rectify.
“I do think we’ve been robbed of our history”, he explains. “We’ve been scared to tell our stories for much of the past century. We’ve certainly been afraid to shine a light on our lives.
“Every other civil movement you look at, the black civil rights movement in America, the women’s equality movement, have this rich history that has been put into popular media, movies and television shows and we just haven’t had that.
“We’ve been denied that it’s out of shame.”
You can read our full feature with Dustin Lance Black and see his exclusive shoot in Attitude’s February issue, available to download and in shops now. Print copies are available to order globally from newsstand.co.uk/attitude.
