Raoul Peck Teams With HBO On Colonialism Docuseries ‘Exterminate All The Brutes’; Josh Hartnett To Topline Scripted Portions

Raoul Peck, the Oscar-nominated director of I Am Not Your Negro, is teaming with HBO for Exterminate All the Brutes, an ambitious four-part hybrid docuseries that will explore the exploitative and genocidal aspects of European colonialism.

The project is being culled from three books: Sven Lindqvist’s Exterminate All the Brutes, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous People’s History of the United States and Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past. The series will draw from documentary footage and archival material along with animation and interpretive scripted scenes, with Josh Hartnett to play the lead role in the latter sections.

The aim is to tell a sweeping story from America to Africa in which history, contemporary life and fiction are intertwined. Peck will deconstruct the making and masking of history through a personal voyage into some of the darkest hours of humanity.

“This project has been my biggest challenge so far,” Peck said Tuesday in a release announcing the project. “It forced me to question not only our common knowledge but also my own experience as a filmmaker. I’m excited that HBO is supporting that vision.”

The docuseries is from Velvet Film, with Peck and Rémi Grellety the executive producers. Velvet Film and ICM Partners are repping international sales rights.

Peck won the Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary Emmy last year for I Am Not Your Negro, in which James Baldwin tells the story of race in modern America via his unfinished novel Remember This House. It was nominated for the Oscar in 2017.