Ava DuVernay, the director behind the Oscar-nominated Martin Luther King Jr. biopic “Selma,” will write, produce and direct a feature film set in the time of Hurricane Katrina, the company backing the film said on Monday.

    David Oyelowo, who plays King in “Selma,” is in talks to co-produce and star in the film, described by Participant Media as “a sweeping love story and complex murder mystery,” set during the time of the 2005 hurricane that slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast* and deluged* the city of New Orleans after levees broke.

    DuVernay, the first African-American woman nominated for a Golden Globe for directing, was hired by Participant Media, which was founded in 2004 by billionaire and former eBay President Jeff Skoll to produce entertainment programing that inspires social change.

    The announcement came less than two weeks after she was passed over for an Oscar nomination for best director, an exclusion that fueled a debate over the lack of diversity in this year’s Academy Awards nominations.(SD-Agencies)