At the Toronto International Film Festival, where “Birth of a Nation” is now playing, she articulately defended the film in a press conference, as Vulture reports, and attempted to persuade those protesting the film because of the rape charges to see it for themselves.
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Though Parker was later acquitted of all charges in 2001, some people thought now would be the ideal time to bring it back up.
When he did, Parker declined to address whether he should have apologized to the now deceased rape victim’s family. “I don’t want to hijack this with my personal life”.
“Birth of a Nation”, Nate Parker’s directorial debut, received a standing ovation when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday night.
The then-18-year-old woman had accused Parker and his friend Jean Celestin – who is listed as a collaborator on Birth of a Nation – of sexually assaulting her. Parker was charged, tried and subsequently acquitted in 2001.
The accuser’s brother, speaking anonymously to protect his sister’s identity, revealed that she had committed suicide in 2012 at age 30, having never recovered from the incident.
The film, out in USA theaters on October 7, was screened in Toronto on Friday night at a red carpet premiere, where no video cameras were allowed and security was tight. Several Academy members previously told The Hollywood Reporter that they would not see the film, much less vote for it, on principal. Fox Searchlight won a heated battle for distribution rights, paying a record-setting $17.5 million. (Parker is a good man, many people worked on this film besides Parker, we’re just honored to be here.) So it was actually a relief to get so directly back to what makes the film relevant, and to find a topic where Parker seemed not just on firm ground, but ready to speak with the force of personal conviction. “No person works alone to create something that is as special as I believe this project is”.
At the junket, Parker wanted to focus more on the film. “There are movies I sit out, so I understand and I’d be a hypocrite to say I don’t”. “I think everyone has to make up their own mind about what connections they draw between the art and the artist”. “So what do you – also now what people are doing is judging the film before seeing it, which is not fair because it’s still an important film – but what do you have to say to those people who are making this choice, and how would you motivate them to support it?”
During Sunday’s press conference, which was followed by a gala premiere of the film, Parker sought to separate his personal life and his past from the movie. “You got injustice? This is your movie”.
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Cameron Bailey, the Toronto festival’s artistic director, described the film as a “painful story from American history and a story that needed to be told”. “This is the Nat Turner story”, added costar Penelope Ann Miller, who was also joined at the conference by fellow stars Armie Hammer, Colman Domingo, Aunjanue Ellis, Aja Naomi King, Gabrielle Union and Jackie Earle Haley. “It’s going to be a lot of uncomfortable, awkward, heated conversations, but that’s the only way we can hope to have evolution and hope to have behavioural shifts, which is what Nat Turner [the main character in Birth of a Nation] was all about”. I didn’t know the Nat Turner story.
