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HBO to launch miniseries from David Simon and Paul Haggis

David Simon, creator and executive producer of the HBO series ""The Wire," has "Show Me a Hero" due in August.

David Simon, creator and executive producer of the HBO series ““The Wire,” has “Show Me a Hero” due in August.

(Chris Pizzello / Associated Press)
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“Show Me a Hero,” a six-part miniseries from creator David Simon (“The Wire”) and director Paul Haggis (“Crash”) and starring Oscar Isaac that touches on racial tensions in America, will have its premiere on HBO in August.

Based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Lisa Belkin, the miniseries also stars Catherine Keener, Alfred Molina, Winona Ryder, LaTanya Richardson-Jackson, Bob Balaban and Jim Belushi.

Set in “an America generations removed from the greatest civil rights struggles of the 1960s,” the project features Isaac as the young mayor of a midsize American city who receives a federal court order mandating the building of a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of his town.

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His attempt to do so tears the city apart, paralyzes the municipal government and, ultimately, destroys the mayor and his political future.

Executives for the project said “Show Me a Hero” explores notions of home, race and community through the lives of elected officials, bureaucrats, activists and ordinary citizens in Yonkers, N.Y.

greg.braxton@latimes.com

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