The Hallmark Channel this week began production of a civil rights era film "The Watsons Go to Birmingham" in Atlanta for a 19-day shoot.

The film, based on a 1995 historical fiction novel of the same name by Christopher Paul Curtis, was created by Nikki Silver and Tonya Lewis Lee, Spike Lee's wife. Lee also wrote the script and spent nine years trying to get it to air.

Atlanta's acclaimed Kenny Leon will direct, as he did last year's "Steel Magnolias" remake for Lifetime. Walmart and P&G are co-sponsoring the film.

"The Watsons" is set in 1963 and is told through the eyes of a 12 year old whose family from Flint, Mich. visits their grandmother in Birmingham, Ala. It happens to be the same year the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed, a pivotal event that year in the fight for civil rights.

According to Hallmark, Grammy Award nominee Anika Noni Rose (“Dreamgirls,” “The Princess and the Frog,” “The Good Wife”) stars along with three-time Tony Award nominee and Grammy nominee David Alan Grier (“In Living Color”), Skai Jackson (“Jessie”), LaTanya Richardson (“The Fighting Temptations”), Wood Harris (“The Wire,” “Remember The Titans”), Bryce Jenkins (“Easy A,” “Have A Little Faith”) and Harrison Knight (“We the Party”).

Richardson plays the no-nonsense grandmother with a boyfriend (Grier), who shows the family how different the South was from the North.

Lee, in an exclusive interview, said the film is not all weighty issues about race relations. It has plenty of humor, too."It's not a heavy civil rights piece," she said. "It's more about the family and their dynamics. The dad is a cut up and a fun guy."

As the scriptwriter, she said the book, which won a Coretta Scott King Award, "was great source material. Everything I needed was in the book."

The film is scheduled to air Sept. 20, five days after the 50th anniversary of the church bombing and around the same time as the March on Washington. 

Lee said she hopes her husband Spike would visit during the shoot. "I was surprised he didn't come down for the Final Four, but someone has to stay home and watch the kids. Maybe he'll stop by later. He's wonderfully supportive, a husband who does this for a living. He understands that I have to be away from home for a month."

She said she knew Leon only in passing but when she told him about the project at the "Steel Magnolias" film opening, he expressed immediate interest. He was her first pick for director and was thrilled he said yes. "He's really great with kids," she said. "I think it was all very serendipitous."

(Of course, the reason why a film supposedly set in Birmingham is being shot instead in metro Atlanta? Our state's very generous tax credits. And it certainly doesn't hurt the film to have Leon, who has his own crew and knows the city well, enabling him to maximize efficiency for a film that is to be shot in just 19 days.)