AMC Theaters and Fifth Season are teaming as much as launch Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb’s function documentary “Butterfly within the Sky,” in regards to the beloved 1980’s PBS youngsters’s collection “Studying Rainbow.”

The movie, which premiered on the Tribeca Movie Competition in 2023, takes audiences behind the scenes of the youngsters’s collection and tells the story of the present’s creators, who believed the small display screen might encourage a love of studying. The docu additionally spotlights the present’s host LeVar Burton and provides an inside take a look at the challenges he and the present’s creators confronted in cultivating a love of studying via tv.

The doc, produced by XTR, could have a restricted theatrical launch starting on March 17 in choose AMC theaters adopted by a full run in New York and extra cities. The movie’s digital and worldwide rights have been acquired by Fifth Season. The doc shall be accessible to look at through VOD (together with iTunes and Amazon) beginning on April 30.

“Having each grown up in Texas, ‘Studying Rainbow’ not solely mirrored the various cultures that surrounded us, however LeVar Burton additionally launched us to different worlds in colourful and magical methods,” the administrators mentioned in a joint assertion. “We consider ‘Studying Rainbow’ is among the many most essential exhibits ever produced and a real unsung hero of kids’s programming. It’s essential for us to honor its legacy and educate a brand new technology about this milestone in tv historical past.”

“Studying Rainbow,” which was on the air for 23 years and spanned 26 seasons, featured visitor stars together with Maya Angelou, Susan Sarandon, Jeff Bridges and James Earl Jones.

“To try ‘Studying Rainbow’ via [the directors’] lens and share this story with audiences all over the place could be very particular,” says Burton. “I hope audiences stroll away with the identical heat, fuzzy feeling I did after I watched this documentary for the primary time.”

To inform the story of the”Studying Rainbow,” the directing duo relied on archival footage and interviews with the present’s numerous co-creators and visitor stars together with Burton, visitor star Whoopi Goldberg and “Studying Rainbow” co-creator Twila Liggett.

“Like thousands and thousands of youngsters everywhere in the world I grew up watching and loving Studying Rainbow,” says XTR founder and CEO Bryn Mooser. “‘Butterfly within the Sky’ is such a robust and joyful reminder of the important significance of kids’s literature.”

The movie is introduced by XTR and is a manufacturing of Sidestilt Movies and Window Photos. The doc was produced by Bryan Storkel and govt produced by Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Leonardis, Mooser, Justin Lacob, Kathryn Everett, Andy Hsieh, Tony Hsieh, Raymond Esposito, John Brooks Pounders and Dava Whisenant.

Roco Movies is dealing with instructional rights, and is making the movie accessible for school rooms, libraries and educators this April.