The production filmed outside the actual Virginia jail where the couple had been incarcerated, and inside the actual courthouse where they had pleaded guilty to the 'crime' of being married.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision of Loving v. Virginia (388 U.S. 1, argued on April 10, 1967, and decided June 12, 1967) unanimously held that Virginia's "Racial Integrity Act of 1924," which forbade marriage between people of different races, was unconstitutional. This decision therefore effectively voided all such laws in other states as well (at the time, interracial marriage was still illegal in at least 15 other states) and was used as precedent in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court decision that likewise declared all laws banning same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.
Director Jeff Nichols was able to tell the story of the Loving family as accurately as possible by relying on Nancy Buirski's documentary The Loving Story (2011), which captured many details of their private lives: "We had this beautiful documentary footage unearthed from the mid-'60s where we got to go into their home and see them and watch them," Nichols said. Because much of the dialogue actually comes straight from the documentary, the Writer's Branch of the AMPAS determined that Loving (2016) should compete in the 'Adapted Screenplay' category of the Academy Awards. [2016]
Mildred Loving's 2008 New York Times obituary reported that her ancestry was both part African American and part Native American on both sides: Rappahannock on her maternal side; Cherokee on her father's. The obituary also said that she preferred to self-identify as Native American rather than African American.
Received a standing ovation at its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2016.
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