The Year of the Great Storm: Tyler Perry to Produce Apartheid Drama

Tyler Perry will produce The Year of the Great Storm, telling the true story and legacy of Amy Biehl

34th Street Films today announced development of a new feature film project, The Year of the Great Storm. Tyler Perry, Ozzie Areu, and Matt Moore will produce the project alongside Russ Stratton and Johanna Baldwin of Air Extreme Films.

The Year of the Great Storm will tell the true story and legacy of Amy Biehl, an American Fulbright scholar who was living in South Africa during the dangerous and violent days of the armed struggle against Apartheid. After Amy was attacked and stabbed to death by a mob of angry black youths in 1993, her American parents decided to attend the trial of her daughter’s killers. They remained in South Africa and began a grassroots effort to bring about change in the movement. Eventually the family supported their daughter’s killers’ application to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission for political amnesty and later two of those same men joined the efforts of the Amy Biehl Foundation. The film aims to paint a vivid picture of a country nearing civil war as it struggled with its national destiny in a desperate fight to end decades of systematic racism.

Doug Liman and George C. Wolfe are also attached to the project as executive producers. Stratton, Baldwin, and Liman previously worked together on A&E’s fourteen-episode documentary series, The uneXplained, which focused on metaphysical phenomena.

Karzan Kader is on board to direct The Year of the Great Storm. Kader’s short film Beakas won a Student Academy Award and went on to become a critically acclaimed feature length film by the same name.

“We’re thrilled to be tackling this difficult but inspiring subject matter with an incredible director, writer, and team of producers,” said Ozzie Areu, President of Tyler Perry Studios. “The story of the Biehl family’s journey is one of courage, compassion, and redemption, and we are humbled that they have allowed us unfettered access to bring their lives to the big screen.”

In addition to producing, Johanna Baldwin penned the script for The Year of the Great Storm. Baldwin has been following the Amy Biehl story since Amy’s death twenty years ago. After meeting Amy’s family in 1996, Baldwin has been working closely with them to track their story over time and has had exclusive access to the family as well as two of the men responsible for her murder. Her other writing credits include the play A Childproof Room at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, directed by Doug Liman and starring Tony Shalhoub, in addition to the film Venus & Mars for BBC One. Her debut novel, All (Wo)men Desire To Know, will be published March 16.

(Photo Credit: Brian To / WENN.com)

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