Ava DuVernay announced on Twitter Friday that her debut Oscar-nominated film Selma is now available to stream for free on U.S. digital platforms, including Amazon Prime and YouTube, for the month of June. Selma follows the historic civil rights marches led by Martin Luther King, Jr. (David Oyelowo) that culminated in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting and ensures Black Americans, and other racial minorities, the right to vote.
This move by Paramount Pictures follows closely in the footsteps of Warner Bros., which recently made Michael B. Jordan’s Just Mercy available to stream for free. As protests over the deaths of George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of police are sweeping the nation, these free streaming releases are being offered to help provide Americans with the resources to understand the severity of rampant systemic racism throughout the country.
Happy to share: Paramount Pictures is offering SELMA for free rental on all US digital platforms for June, starting today. We’ve gotta understand where we’ve been to strategize where we’re going. History helps us create the blueprint. Onward. @SelmaMovie. https://t.co/mxhGpfQeIP
— Ava DuVernay (@ava) June 5, 2020
When Selma was first released in 2014, its premiere coincided with the death of Eric Garner, whose final words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement. Oyelowo noted in a recent interview with ScreenDaily that the film was punished by the Academy — one nomination and zero wins — when its cast and crew vocally and publicly demanded justice for Garner’s death while in police custody. Oyelowo said, “I remember at the premiere of Selma us wearing ‘I Can’t Breathe’ t-shirts in protest. Members of the Academy called into the studio and our producers saying, ‘How dare they do that? Why are they stirring [sh–]?’ and ‘We are not going to vote for that film because we do not think it is their place to be doing that.'”
“It’s part of why that film didn’t get everything that people think it should’ve got and it birthed #OscarsSoWhite,” said Oyelowo. “They used their privilege to deny a film on the basis of what they valued in the world.”
Black lives matter. Text DEMANDS to 55156 to sign Color of Change’s petition to reform policing, and visit blacklivesmatters.carrd.co for more ways to donate, sign petitions, and protest safely.
Selma