Feature documentary Cassius X: Becoming Ali, directed by US filmmaker Muta’Ali, has been picked up for distribution in the UK and Ireland by Cosmic Cat, ahead of its world premiere next week (March 9) at the Glasgow Film Festival.
A theatrical release is planned to coincide with the UK’s Black History Month in October of this year.
It is produced by Glasgow -based Two Rivers Media in association with Paramount Media Networks and MTV Entertainment Studios and has backing from Screen Scotland. Cosmic Cat picked up the title directly from Two Rivers Media.
The feature is based on a book by Scottish journalist Stuart Cosgrove, Cassius X: A Legend In The Making, and explores the transformation of Kentucky-born Cassius Clay into international boxing icon and civil rights activist, Muhammad Ali, as he risks everything for his adopted Muslim religion, while approaching the biggest fight of his life.
Interviews take place with his eldest daughter Attallah Shabazz, Dee Dee Sharp (R&B singer and girlfriend of Ali in the early 60s), boxing broadcaster and friend of Ali Jim Lampley and Ali’s biographer, Thomas Hauser.
Director of Cosmic Cat, Ged Fitzsimmons, said: “It is an incredible and somewhat untold chapter of Muhammad Ali’s story. We want to use this film to celebrate Muhammad Ali as a civil rights campaigner as well as a champion boxer.”
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