Montgomery native gets Oscar nod for ‘BlacKKKlansman’

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) - A Montgomery native is making it big time after receiving a heavy honor in the film industry.

Editor Barry Alexander Brown is a 2019 Oscar nominee for the film “BlacKKKlansman,” from legendary director Spike Lee. Brown says he and Lee began working on the film late in 2017.

According to the Internet Movie Database, the movie is based on true events. It follows Colorado police officer Ron Stallworth, a black man, after he successfully infiltrated a local Ku Klux Klan branch. Stallworth gets a helping hand from a Jewish trainee, who eventually becomes the branch’s new leader.

The pair took the film to the Cannes Film Festival and won its top honor. Brown says “BlacKKKlansman” was introduced in theaters last August.

Brown, a Sidney Lanier High School graduate, got his first taste of theatrics in Montgomery.

“I started as an actor in the Little Theater, and as soon as I could go out in the world, I went,” Brown said.

The Oscar nominee is now working on a film based in Montgomery during the early 1960s titled “Son of the South.”

“It’s about a guy named Bob Zellner who was graduating from Huntingdon College at that time, and it’s a story about his transition. He got pulled into the Civil Rights Movement. His father was a Methodist minister, as well, and his grandfather had even been in the Klan at that moment.”

“BlacKKKlansman” has been nominated for the category of Best Adapted Screenplay, along with four other nominees.

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