‘Emancipation’ Transferring Manufacturing Out of Georgia As a result of New Electoral Regulation: NPR

Actor Will Smith, who will be here in Paris in January 2020, plays the lead role and produces the film Emancipation. Thomas Samson / AFP via Getty Images Hide caption

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Thomas Samson / AFP via Getty Images

Actor Will Smith, who will be here in Paris in January 2020, plays the lead role and produces the film Emancipation.

Thomas Samson / AFP via Getty Images

Director Antoine Fuqua and actor Will Smith, who are co-producing the upcoming 1860s film Emancipation, announced Monday that they were rescheduling production of the film from Georgia due to newly enacted electoral laws.

In a statement to NPR on Monday morning, Fuqua and Smith said:

“At this moment the nation is grappling with its history and trying to eradicate traces of institutional racism in order to achieve true racial justice. We cannot in good conscience provide economic support to a government that passes regressive electoral laws that have been drafted.” Georgia’s new electoral laws are reminiscent of electoral barriers that were passed at the end of the reconstruction to prevent many Americans from voting. Unfortunately, we feel compelled to move our film production work from Georgia to another state. “

The Emancipation, which should begin filming in June, is based on the true story of an enslaved man named Peter (played by Smith) who escaped from a plantation in Louisiana and joined the Union Army.

In July, Apple set a record for film festival purchases when Apple won the worldwide rights for around $ 120 million in the Cannes virtual market.

MLB's move from Georgia is the last in a series of political boycotts

Georgia’s new electoral laws, signed by Governor Brian Kemp last month, include postal voting restrictions and add new identification requirements, among other things. Critics say these measures disproportionately harm color communities.

Major League Baseball has already pulled its all-star game out of Atlanta and moved to Colorado in response. Large Georgia-based companies, including Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, have also publicly criticized the new laws, calling them “unacceptable.”