In 1971, Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis were well-known residents of Durham, North Carolina, but certainly not a pair you’d expect to see together.
Ann Atwater (TARAJI P. HENSON), 32, was a single mother, raising her daughters in East Durham. Brazen slumlords, firetrap schools and do-nothing local officials were daily facts of life, but Ann fought back as a grass roots activist at Operation Breakthrough. Roughhouse Annie, as some called her, was a blessing to her neighbors, and a threat to her foes.
C.P. Ellis (SAM ROCKWELL), age 44, eked out a living at a tiny East Durham gas station. He owned the place, but in Durham he’d always be a “linthead” – poor white trash – just like his millhand dad, and his own four kids. C.P. joined the KKK because he wanted to belong. They listened when C.P. spoke, and by 1971, he’d become their voice as Durham’s Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan.
The idea of Ann and C.P. ever exchanging a civil word was close to unthinkable. But in writer- director ROBIN BISSELL’s THE BEST OF ENEMIES, a dramatic feature film inspired by true events, these two bitter rivals are forced to start talking to resolve a crisis in their dangerously divided city.
Despite the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954, Durham’s public schools were still segregated in 1971, and when fire struck a black neighborhood school, the city decided those students would have to finish the year at the damaged building. Better that, they said, than over-crowding the kids at the white school. With elections coming up, Councilman Carvie Oldham (BRUCE McGILL) and Garland Keith (NICK SEARCY) of the White Citizens Council were not about to rock the boat. But that boat completely changed course when Bill Riddick (BABOU CEESAY) was brought on board to resolve Durham’s escalating crisis with a charrette.
“A what?” asked everyone in Durham.
A charrette is a community meeting convened to solve a problem by bringing opposing sides together to talk it out. Durham’s meeting would last for 10 days, from 9 AM until 9 PM, with Riddick, a Raleigh academic with impressive charrette credentials, running the show. It would conclude with an up or down vote on school integration, with the city compelled to abide by the decision.
Riddick instantly knew he needed Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis – not to mention their potent street cred – as his charrette co-chairs. C.P. sneered until Garland Keith pointed out the stakes. What if some liberal ended up representing “their” side? Although Keith didn’t associate with Klan folk in public, he and Carvie Oldham weren’t above using C.P. and his boys for intimidation tactics behind the scenes.
But the local white power brokers didn’t realize the impact a charrette could have. The forced proximity it imposed gave Ann insight into the painful struggle C.P. and Mary Ellis (ANNE HECHE) endured as parents. Much as Ann hated C.P., she warmed to Mary and realized that the Atwater and Ellis families both wanted something better for their kids than Durham had allowed. And while it was hard to fathom that Ann and C.P. could find any common ground, it was also clear that whatever the outcome of the charrette vote itself, change had already begun in Durham.
STXfilms THE BEST OF ENEMIES marks the screenwriting and directorial debut of Robin Bissell, a producer of award-winning films including Seabiscuit, Pleasantville and The Hunger Games. His original screenplay was inspired by Osha Gray Davidson’s 1996 non-fiction book The Best of Enemies Race and Redemption in the New South.
Along with Oscarâ-nominated Taraji P. Henson (Hidden Figures), Academy Awardâ winner Sam Rockwell (Vice), and BAFTA-nominated Babou Ceesay (Into the Badlands), Bissell’s debut film also stars Emmyâ and Tony Awardâ nominee Anne Heche (The Brave), BAFTA Award nominee WES BENTLEY (The Hunger Games) as Klan enforcer Floyd Kelly , Nick Searcy (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Tony Awardâ winner JOHN GALLAGHER, JR. (Peppermint) as hardware store owner Lee Trombley and BRUCE MCGILL (Lincoln)/
THE BEST OF ENEMIES producers are Emmy Awardâ winner DANNY STRONG (Game Change), FRED BERNSTEIN (An Interview with God), MATT BERENSON (The Boy), ROBIN BISSELL,

DOMINIQUE TELSON (Welcome to Pine Grove!), TOBEY MAGUIRE (The Fifth Wave) and MATTHEW PLOUFFE (The Fifth Wave).
Bissell’s behind-the-scenes creative team includes Director of Photography DAVID LANZENBERG (Peppermint), four-time Oscarâ-nominated Production Designer JEANNINE OPPEWALL (L.A. Confidential), Editor HARRY YOON (Detroit), Costume Designer J.R. HAWBAKER (The Revenant), and Composer MARCELO ZARVOS (Wonder).