The writer and director of 2008's Milk, Dustin Lance Black and Gus Van Sant, will be reuniting returning to the topic of LGBT history in San Francisco with When We Rise, an eight-part documentary mini-series that just got the green light from ABC for next year. As Entertainment Weekly reports, Van Sant has signed on to direct at least the first two parts of the mini-series, and will serve as executive producer.

Black will also executive produce, as will Milk producer Bruce Cohen, and Laurence Mark.

SF Weekly guesses that this could be a high-production-value shoot involving re-enactments in the streets of the Castro, a la Milk, but we shall see. And, with eight hours of documentary television, one can assume that the Harvey Milk chapters in the 1970s may only be a portion of this, and no doubt Gavin Newsom will get a starring role with the gay weddings of February 2004.

After putting more gay sex on TV than any major network in recent history (via How to Get Away With Murder, among other shows), ABC appears to be further courting gay audiences with this new mini-series.