City leaders to hold public meeting on ‘Selma’

Published 11:35 pm Friday, May 23, 2014

City government and ‘Selma’ move staff will have a town hall meeting Tuesday to addresses several topics about the filming schedule, including closing the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

The meeting will start at 4 p.m. Tuesday and partially address logistical questions that residents or city government have about movie production, location manager Wes Hagan said. Part of the logistics will be addressing Edmund Pettus Bridge’s closure.

Hagan said the bridge would be closed for three days — June 23 to 26 — for filming.

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“It won’t be a 24-hour closure,” Hagan said. “It will just be when we are filming on the bridge. We will open the bridge back up to the public at night.”

Filming will also take place in various parts of the city. Multiple other streets could be closed, he said.

Hagan said the meeting could be important for residents to find out how the filming schedule might affect businesses or daily commutes.

Selma Mayor George Evans said opportunities for casting in the movie will also be discussed during the meeting.

“I would just invite all residents to come and hear the presentation and learn about the project itself,” Evans said. “[The production crew] will be the people that will be able to give the most insight.”

The film will also be shot at the Alabama State Capitol Building and in the Atlanta Metropolitan area.

The movie will focus on the voting rights movement and Selma to Montgomery marches in the 1960s.

Among the filmmakers are celebrities Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt.

The film stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr., Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson and Common as James Bevel.