Barry Jenkins to direct biopic based on Alvin Ailey

Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins is all set to treat his fans with his next project--a biopic about the late legendary choreographer and dancer Alvin Ailey.

Fox Searchlight first announced the upcoming project in March, last year, saying it had the support of the Ailey Organisation, reported Variety.

Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys is producing the film with Susan Lewis, along with Judy Kinberg, Rachel Cohen, and Jana Edelbaum.

Apart from donning the director's hat, Jenkins will also serve as an executive producer alongside Edelbaum and Lewis. Julian Breece is writing the script for the movie.

The upcoming project includes the rights to Jennifer Dunning's biography 'Alvin Ailey: A Life in Dance'. The producers will be working with the dance company's artistic director Robert Battle and artistic director emerita Judith Jamison.

Jenkins's upcoming biopic currently has no release date and the rest of the details about the film has been kept under wraps.

Jenkins won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for his film 'Moonlight' and was also nominated for directing the coming-of-age best picture winner. He was nominated this year for best adapted screenplay for 'If Beale Street Could Talk', which he also directed.

Ailey, who was raised in rural Texas by a single mother, founded the interracial Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in New York City in 1958 and helped to promote and popularise modern dance.

Ailey created his most-performed and recognised a piece of modern dance in the history called 'Revelations'.

Ailey received the Kennedy Centre Honours in 1988, a year before he passed away at the age of 58 from AIDS-related complications.

In 2014, former President Barack Obama chose Ailey to be a posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.