Rosario Dawson (L) and Donna Hylton
*Rosario Dawson has been cast as activist Donna Hylton in a feature film based on the biography A Little Piece Of Light, according to Deadline.com.
The book’s title is said to have been taken from something that happened to Hylton as a child.
According to the story that will be used for the feature film: Growing up in Jamaica, Hylton’s mother first sold her to an American couple in New York. She was 7 years old. Thinking that she was going to Disneyland, she ended up in a very different reality: Hylton would find out that her adoptive father was a pedophile. To get away from him, she would hide in the closet, and when she saw a little piece of light coming through the room, she knew he was on his way to get her.
Donna Hylton
Hylton, whose beauty became her curse in a life of sexual abuse, was later arrested at age 19 when she was a high school track star over her involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a Rikers Island real estate agent. She was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison and was put in solitary confinement where she, once again, would see that little piece of light. This time, however, it grew to mean something very different.
Once out of prison in 2012, she would look for that little piece of light in others. And eventually found her calling — fighting for women’s rights alongside her mother figure and women’s rights activist, author Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues).
Rosario Dawson (L) and Donna Hylton
Dawson and Hylton are currently looking for a female screenwriter to adapt the book as well as a female director.
“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,” said Dan Pearson, who is repping the material and Hylton’s life rights through his D4 Entertainement. “That’s how it’s got to go. Donna says, ‘Your voice is my voice. My voice is your voice. And together our voice is powerful.’ ” Frank Weimann at the FolioLit literary agency in New York is working with Pearson.
Below, Hylton is interviewed about her participation in the recent Women’s March in Washington:
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