'Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down': A new documentary coming from CNN Films, Time Studios

CNN Films and Time Studios are making a documentary about Gabrielle Giffords.

The film, titled “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down,” is directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen, who made “RBG” and “Julia,” well-received documentaries about the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the late chef Julia Child.

Giffords, a former Arizona congresswoman, was injured in a shooting in Tucson in 2011 that killed six people and injured 13 others.

CNN described the Giffords film as “a tender yet raw documentary about … Giffords’ remarkable perseverance following a horrific 2011 assassination attempt that left her with partial paralysis and the language impairment, aphasia.”

The film about Giffords will include footage from the hospital

The film sounds intriguing, as it will include “home movies taken at the hospital,” according to the statement, in addition to interviews and other footage. The film also follows “a remarkable love story” between Giffords and Mark Kelly, the former astronaut who successfully ran for the U.S. Senate from Arizona in 2020.

“Within minutes of meeting Gabby Giffords, we knew we had to make a film about this phenomenal woman,” Cohen and West said in a statement. “The intelligence, humor and toughness she brings to every personal and political challenge that comes her way makes Gabby not only an ideal documentary subject, but also a spectacular human being to spend time with.”

The documentary will include new interviews with Barack Obama, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, as well as Giffords’ surgeon, her speech pathologists and her mother, along with other survivors of the shooting.

Filmmakers were given “unprecedented access to Gabby Giffords’ life, filming her daily rides on a customized recumbent bike,” the release says, “her French horn practice, and studying for an adult bat mitzvah.”

Announcement of the film coincides with Sarah Palin's lawsuit

The announcement of the film comes at an interesting time, as the shooting has been in the news again lately thanks to Sarah Palin’s defamation suit against the New York Times. Palin, the former governor of Alaska who was Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, sued the Times in 2017 after an editorial incorrectly linked the Tucson shooting to Palin’s political action committee. The Times later corrected the editorial.

The trial, which was set to begin Monday, was delayed when the unvaccinated Palin tested positive for COVID-19. It’s now scheduled to begin Feb. 3.

“Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” is nearing completion, according to the statement; the film is scheduled for a July 15 release.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: CNN Films is making the documentary 'Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down'