VIDEO: Trailer for Stonewall film released

THE trailer has just been released for the upcoming movie based on New York City’s Stonewall Riots in 1969.

Directed by Roland Emmerich, Stonewall is a drama about a fictional young gay man who gets caught up in the historic riots, which are often regarded as the most important event in the western gay liberation movement.

[showads ad=MREC]An Australian release date for the film has not yet been announced.

The riots took place in response to a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighbourhood — a bar which still exists today and was recently named a historic landmark, just days ahead of the US Supreme Court effectively legalising same-sex marriage across the country.

The Stonewall Riots is also considered the birth of worldwide pride festivals and parades, with New York’s 2015 Pride Parade celebrating 46 years since it all began.

The riots also had an impact in Australia. In June 1978, a group of Sydneysiders took to the streets to mark the anniversary of Stonewall, only to be met with heavy-handed police action. The protests that followed soon became an annual event, hence marking the start of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade.

On YouTube, the plot of Stonewall is described as:

“Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine) is forced to leave behind friends and loved ones when he is kicked out of his parent’s home and flees to New York.

“Alone in Greenwich Village, homeless and destitute, he befriends a group of street kids who soon introduce him to the local watering hole The Stonewall Inn; however, this shady, mafia-run club is far from a safe-haven.

“As Danny and his friends experience discrimination, endure atrocities and are repeatedly harassed by the police, we see a rage begin to build.

“This emotion runs through Danny and the entire community of young gays, lesbians and drag queens who populate the Stonewall Inn and erupts in a storm of anger.

“With the toss of a single brick, a riot ensues and a crusade for equality is born.”

Watch the trailer here: