As far as 2017's slate of prestige television goes, none might be more timely than the upcoming miniseries, When We Rise.
The seven-part series created by the team behind 2008's Oscar-winning Milk, writer Dustin Lance Black and director Gus Van Sant, takes a wide lens to the LGBTI rights movement from the Stonewall Riots in 1969 to its recent gains, culminating in the 2015 Obergefell v Hodges ruling that made same-sex marriage legal in the United States.
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Trailer: When We Rise
A chronicled re-telling the gay rights movement in the United States, beginning with the Stonewall riots in 1969.
But its filming took place in an environment of anxiety and mourning for the queer community, says star Guy Pearce.
"We made the series in April, May, June last year and we were talking about the prospect of Donald Trump while we were shooting," he says, recalling the President-elect's overtly anti-LGBTI campaign platform.
![Guy Pearce as LGBTI activist Cleve Jones in the upcoming miniseries. During filming he felt how tenuous civil rights for ...](/web/20170112085437im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/m/d/h/y/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtpf4i.png/1484165698250.jpg)
"Everybody was going, 'Well, it doesn't look likely but it's possible that Trump might get in, so everybody needs to just be on their toes and make sure this doesn't happen …'. And then it happened.
"Then, right in the middle of our shoot, the Orlando massacre occurred, which as we know happened in a gay nightclub. It sent the most horrendous ripple of sadness through the set; it was devastating," says Pearce, mentioning that some on the set were personally affected by the tragedy.
A trailer for the series, released by US network ABC today, highlights that emotion, with melodramatic scenes of violent protest, teary-eyed family confrontations and the movement's hard-won triumphs amping the project's angry tension.
![Rosie O'Donnell in <i>When We Rise</i>, which takes a wide lens to the LGBTI rights movement from the Stonewall Riots in ...](/web/20170112085437im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/p/f/7/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtpf4i.png/1484165698250.jpg)
The series – which also stars Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie O'Donnell, Mary-Louise Parker and Rachel Griffiths – is based on the memoirs of the same name by prominent US queer rights activist Cleve Jones, a friend of Harvey Milk who conceived the AIDS Memorial Quilt following Milk's assassination. (The quilt, housed in Atlanta, is the world's largest community arts project, consisting of about 48,000 panels commemorating over 94,000 deaths).
Jones, who was played by Emile Hirsch in Milk, is played by Pearce in the miniseries.
"He was on set a number of times and I got to spend some time with him," Pearce says about Jones, who is 62.
"It was really interesting to pick his brain and just sort of understand what he's been through, losing a lot of friends in the '70s and '80s through AIDS, and just the fight these guys endured; not just physically in the streets with bigotry but also against governments in just trying to be heard."
Almost 50 years on from Stonewall, it's a struggle that continues – from Trump's incoming cabinet of homophobic rogues in the US to Australia's floundering over marriage equality.
"It's something we felt while making the show, this feeling of how tenuous civil rights for minority groups still are, whether they're gay rights or women's rights or rights for people with disabilities," says Pearce.
"It's this sort of two steps forward, one step backwards feeling of how precarious recognition still is. It was a really moving project to work on."
When We Rise premieres in the US on February 27, with other countries to follow.