Screen Gems has teamed up with Jennifer Aniston and her Echo Films production company to make a film about lingering racial tensions in the deep south. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Holler “Tells the story of a biracial high school student who returns with his white mother to her hometown in Mississippi, where he falls for a white girl. When prom season arrives at the high school, he is shocked to discover that she cannot be his date at the segregated prom. He soon finds himself the catalyst for change for not only the prom but for the school and entire town.”
We’re presuming Aniston isn’t going to play the white teen who can’t go to the prom with her mixed race boyfriend, and indeed at this stage there’s a chance she’ll only produce, although the most logical move would be for her to play the boy’s mother.
Unfortunately it isn’t a tale isn’t inspired by the long-distant past. In the US HBO recently aired a documentary called ‘Prom Night In Mississippi’, which follows a small town high school as they prepare for their first integrated prom. Actor Morgan Freeman, who grew up in the town, agreed to pay for the prom on the condition that anyone would be welcome irrespective of race, which touched off a firestorm of controversy. And this all took place only last year (after Freeman’s similar offer in 1997 was turned down).
There’s no news yet on when Holler might go into production, although it is truly incredible that in this day and age there are still high schools holding segragated proms.