The team behind the Oscar-winning film Milk is staying in familiar waters for its next project.

ABC has greenlit When We Rise, an eight-hour miniseries about the gay rights movement.

The project, which was in development for more than two years at ABC, chronicles the personal and political struggles of a diverse family of LGBT men and women, who helped pioneer the gay rights movement from its turbulent infancy to its modern successes.

Milk director Gus Van Sant will helm the mini’s first two hours. Dustin Lance Black, the film’s writer, will pen the script and executive-produce with Van Sant and Bruce Cohen (another of the movie’s producers).

Released in 2008, Milk starred Sean Penn as gay rights activist Harvey Milk and won two Oscars for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay.