WHO’S IN IT?
Nate Parker (Red Tails), Armie Hammer (The Social Network), Mark Boone Junior (Batman Begins), Colman Domingo (Selma), Aunjanue Ellis (The Help), Dwight Henry (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Aja Naomi King (Damsels in Distress), Esther Scott (Boyz n The Hood), Roger Guenveur Smith (American Gangster), Gabrielle Union (Bring It On), Penelope Ann Miller (The Artist), Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen), Tony Espinosa (film debut), Jayson Warner Smith (99 Homes), Jason Stuart (Coffee Date), Steve Coulter (The Conjuring)
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Nate Parker (film debut), director, writer, producer; Jason Michael Berman (Little Accidents), Aaron L. Gilbert (Paradox), Preston L. Holmes (How To Be A Player) and Kevin Turen (99 Homes), producers; Henry Jackman (Captain America: Civil War), composer; Elliot Davis (I Am Sam), cinematographer; Steven Rosenblum (Braveheart), editor
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Nat Turner (Parker), a slave in the antebellum South, is taught to read and grows up to become a preacher to other slaves on the plantation he lives on. When his financially strained owner Samuel Turner (Hammer) accepts an offer for Nat to visit several other plantations, orchestrated to subdue unruly slaves, he sees the true horrors that slavery is bringing to his people, and eventually organises a revolt against their superiors in a desperate attempt to achieve liberation…
IN ONE SENTENCE, WHY SHOULD YOU BE EXCITED?
Its Oscar chances may have all but evaporated thanks to a controversial revelation regarding writer/director/star Nate Parker’s alleged criminal past, but his powerful tale of slavery and retribution is still worth watching as a grim reminder of one of America’s darkest eras.
