Rosario Dawson is to portray women’s rights activist Donna Hylton in new film ‘A Little Piece Of Light’.
The ‘Seven Pounds’ actress has been cast in the lead role and will play Donna when she is an adult in the harrowing true life story.
The movie – base on the biography of the same name – will focus on Donna’s upbringing in Jamaica before she was sold by her mother to an American couple living in New York when she was seven.
Her adoptive father was a paedophile and he sexually abused her over a number of years and Donna would hide in closets to escape him but when she saw a chink of light come into her room she knew he had entered to assault her.
When she was a 19 year old track and field star Donna was arrested for her part in the kidnapping and murder of a Rikers Island real estate agent and she was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, spending the majority of her incarceration in solitary confinement, however, after her release in 2012 she became a prominent women’s rights campaigner.
Rosario, 37, announced her new role on Twitter, posting: "Thank you so much love! Proud to represent my dear friend and incredibly inspiring activist and advocate @DonnaHylton! #ALittlePieceOfLight (sic)"
Although Rosario has been cast in the movie, no director or screenwriter are in place yet, but both jobs are set to go to women.
Dan Pearson, who is responsible for the rights to Hylton’s life story through his D4 Entertainment company and will be getting the project to the big screen, told Deadline: "We are all looking for the right female screenwriter and director for ‘A Little Piece Of Light’. This is a project for women, by women, of women."
Rosario Dawson to portray activist Donna Hylton in new film
