Spike Lee's New BlackkKlansman Film Set In 1970s Colorado Springs

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO -- American film director Spike Lee's new film, BlackkKlansman, tells the true story of the 1970s KKK in Colorado Springs through the eyes of an African American police officer on the Colorado Springs police force.

The film, which screened at Cannes Film Festival in France this week, tells the story of detective Ron Stallworth, a black officer who joined the CSPD force in 1978. Stallworth, and another officer who acted as his white double, risked their lives to infiltrate the local Klan chapter. The team secretly prevented crimes across the city.

The real live Stallworth told Salt Lake City TV interviewers last year he filled out an application to become a member of the local KKK chapter, and was surprised when his phone rang shortly thereafter.

"Within three days to maybe a week, I get a phone to the undercover phone line in my office and I pick it up and the voice on other end identifies himself as the local Klan organizer and he asks to speak to Ron Stallworth," he said on ABC4.

Stallworth and his white partner, "Chuck"-- represented as Jewish detective Flip Zimmerman in Lee's film -- pretended to be the same person for nine months, until the investigation ended when Stallworth was asked to be the leader of the local Klan chapter.

The team thwarted the local Klan organization from several cross burnings, the real Stallworth said.

"They were going to put them on high strategic locations so that anywhere you were driving in Colorado Springs, you could look off in the distance and see these crosses burning. At no time were they ever able to pull these off," Stallworth said. Stallworth helped identify several local military officials, including two at NORAD, who were secret Klansmen.

"[U]nknowingly to me, I had identified [members] of the Klan who were serving in NORAD and had top security clearance," Stallworth said in the interview. "They said by the end of business today, so by 5 p.m. that day, those two guys would be on a military transport out of there, 'cause the Pentagon doesn't want them to be in a top security clearance job like this and won't tolerate this type of behavior."

Lees' film doesn't just represent the bad-old-days in Colorado Springs. If the trailer is any representation, the film celebrates the glorious 1970s of US African American fashion, music and culture, including the many afro hairstyles worn by characters in the film, including Stallworth himself.

The film was produced by Jordan Peele. John Daniel Washington plays Stallworth. The film will begin US theaters in August.

See the real Detective Ron Stallworth interviewed on ABC4 here.