If Jackie Boatwright's tragedy-to-triumph story seems like the stuff of movies, pretty soon it will be.

Filming is scheduled to begin next month on For The Love of Juan , an indie movie recounting her toddler son's near-drowning in a mop bucket at an uninsured Hephzibah day care and her crusade to pass "Juan's Law" in Georgia, other states and Congress.

Ms. Boatwright, now living in the Atlanta area where she runs a publishing company and cares for her severely brain-damaged youngest son, wrote the script based on her book, Juan's Story . She's also producing the movie through her upstart film company.

While the plot covers state politics, at heart it's a love story between a woman and her child and a woman and her God, she said. She and director Darryl D. Lassiter say the movie should have widespread appeal.

"Because it's real," Ms. Boatwright said. "Secondly, everybody's gone through something. It may not be as traumatic as what I've been through, but they've been through something."

She wouldn't say how she's financing the project, though she did mention "investors."

This will be Mr. Lassiter's second time directing a full-length movie. He wrote, produced and directed 2000's Pay the Price and has directed music videos for gospel singer Vickie Winans.

Mel Jackson, who played Norman Whitfield in the television miniseries The Temptations, has been cast as Juan's father, and Alaina Reed-Hall of TV's Sesame Street and 227 will play Ms. Boatwright's mother.

Deanna Brown-Thomas, an Augusta radio personality and daughter of James Brown, was in the lead role of Ms. Boatwright but had to bow out last week because of conflicts with her work schedule. Ms. Boatwright said she's working with the Screen Actors Guild to recast.

Mr. Lassiter said he hopes to find a tone similar to John Q , the 2002 Denzel Washington movie in which a father takes hostages in an emergency room and demands a heart transplant for his son. Everyone either has a child or knows someone who has a child and, like Ms. Boatwright, would likely do anything to protect them, he said.

"She's a fighter, and that's another thing people can relate to -- fighting against all odds," Mr. Lassiter said.

Juan was injured in 2001 when he was 14 months old. Ms. Boatwright, 41, said the movie will cover their lives starting around the time of Juan's birth.

At the time of the accident, the former model and beauty queen who once had a Savannah-area Fox affiliate talk show called The Jackie Boatwright Show was a single mother of two sons running a gym and aerobics center in Millen.

She was leaving Juan at a home day care because she thought he'd get more attention and pick up less viruses. Two days before Sept. 11, with two adults and five older children present at the day care, Juan wandered into the kitchen and fell into a mop bucket, submerging in a mixture of bleach and water.

His debilitating injuries were devastating, but as hospital bills poured in, Ms. Boatwright learned the day care had no liability insurance and wasn't required to. A $33 million judgment against owner Maria Anderson did her no good because there was no money to collect. Juan's care and half a million in medical bills left her financially and emotionally drained.

But then she started a fight that still hasn't ended.

With the help of Augusta-area legislators, she saw Juan's Law passed in Georgia. The measure doesn't require day-care centers to carry insurance, but it requires them to tell parents whether they have it. Similar laws have passed in Virginia, Michigan and Alabama.

In 2006, U.S. Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., introduced the Anthony DeJuan Boatwright Act, which would withhold federal Child Care and Development Block Grants from states that don't approve Juan's Law. The bill passed in the House in 2007 and is in committee in the Senate. Juan, now 7, is still disabled but doing better, Ms. Boatwright said. He can sit in a chair now, but he's not walking yet, his mother said. He opens his eyes a lot and tries to talk.

"He spends a lot of time trying to get his little lips to move, his tongue to move," she said. "It's like seeing a little something trying to come back to life."

Medicaid pays for most of his care, and a nurse cares for him 10 hours a day at their Lithonia home. He also gets lessons from a DeKalb County schools teacher twice a week, and he's advanced to the second grade.

Ms. Boatwright said she's content in her life, and the film will reflect that.

"It has such an absolutely happy ending," she said. "If you can tell by the sound of my voice, I'm living that ending."

Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225 or johnny.edwards@augustachronicle.com.