Chaz Ebert Will Produce a Film about Emmett Till and His Mother Mamie Till.

Chaz Ebert


Chaz Ebert, the widow of famed and beloved film critic Roger Ebert, has done quite a bit over the years to celebrate her late husband’s legacy and his love of film.

Chaz, who was working as a trial attorney when she married Roger Ebert in 1992, has slipped into the producer’s chair for an upcoming film about the life and death of Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till.

At the age of 14, Emmett Till was kidnapped, brutally tortured, and murdered by a group of white men, for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The gory images of his mutilated body spurred the Civil Rights Movement.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Till’s death. Deadline reports that the upcoming film produced by Ebert, will be based on the 2004 Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America, written by Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson.

“The full Emmett Till story needs to be told now and told well as a narrative for our times, given all that is happening on American streets today, and Shatterglass Films are the people to tell it,” said Ebert.

The project will begin filming next year in Illinois and Mississippi.