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Actor and director Nate Parker stars as Nat Turner in ‘The Birth of a Nation’ a film about an enslaved African-American preacher and deeply religious man who led a rebellion of slaves and free blacks in Southampton County, Virginia, on Aug. 21, 1831.
Fox Searchlight
First of all, can we say how much we love the fact that actor Nate Parker called his film on Nat Turner’s slave uprising The Birth of a Nation reclaiming the name of one of the most virulently racist films in the entire American film canon?
Second, we can hardily wait until October to see the film, which finally, and if the trailer is any indication, hauntingly, knowingly and searingly tells the story of slavery and those enslaved from an African-American perspective?
Fox Searchlight debuted the almost two-minute clip of Birth, Parker’s eight-years-in-the-making magnum opus on Friday. It opens with the chords of Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit.” The film was raucously received at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where distributors got into a bidding war and Fox Searchlight was ultimately victorious paying $17.5 million. (Parker also won the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.)
The Los Angeles Times reports that Parker, a Virginia native, produced, wrote, directed and stars in Birth, and told press that he was in college when he learned about Turner, a preacher who led the biggest rebellion of slaves in America, in 1831 Virginia.
Parker, 36, is involved in all aspects of the film from marketing to the film’s global rollout. He told the Times he is managing expectations for his highly anticipated debut.
“I try to stay away from expectation, because you never know,” he said. “The reality is, people are people and their opinions are their opinions and you hope that you touch them in a way that at least you can take them on a journey that will activate them and make them feel like they can do something to affect the injustice that they see in the systems around them.”
Read more at the Los Angeles Times.
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