“Birth of a Nation” writer/director/star Nate Parker had trouble getting reporters to stick to the script at a contentious press conference at the Toronto Film Festival Sunday. When it came to the film, though, the cast and crew members who spoke were to some on message, defending Parker as a good man and a generous director in the wake of the renewed questions over his college rape case, which was not directly addressed during the conversation.
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Parker, along with his The Birth of a Nation collaborator Jean Celestin, had been accused of sexual assault by an 18-year-old classmate at Penn State University in Pennsylvania back in 1999. The interviews caused re-emergence of facts about the case, including that the accuser committed suicide in 2012. Parker’s film immediately sparked widespread Oscar expectations and a bidding war among distributors.
Could the buzzy drama – which wowed critics at Sundance and so impressed Fox Searchlight that the studio paid a record $17.5-million (U.S.) for it – weather the storm of controversy surrounding Parker’s history, which is especially problematic as the film’s narrative pivots on a scene of sexual assault? “Beautiful”, she said at one point, as Aja Naomi King, who plays Turner’s wife Cherry, described how she found a tiny historical snipped that confirmed the existence of a real-life wife, and mentioned that Turner’s papers had been beaten out of her. There are 400-plus people who worked on this film. So when people are talking about boycotting this film, they’re doing more damage to his reputation than Parker’s bank account.
“I would just encourage everyone to remember that personal life aside, I’m just one person”.
The 70-minute press conference for the movie, held at the Fairmont Royal York hotel, was packed with journalists wondering how Parker would face the scrutiny. Contemporary cinema does not operate in a vacuum, however, and The Birth of a Nation is shackled to the controversy that surrounds Parker.
Believe me when I say I am not defending Parker in any way. “The legacy of Nat Turner is important to us – he healed all of us”.
“It’s a powerful film and it tells a hugely important story and the kind of story we don’t see often”, the festival’s artistic director Cameron Bailey said in an interview.
At the film’s TIFF debut on Friday, Parker and his cast were met with a standing ovation.
“We’re not creating a movie”, she said.
“Healing comes with honest conversation about our past. But this is a forum for the film, this is a forum for the other people that are sitting on this stage”, he said, joined on the panel by seven of his cast mates from the film.
This is the frustration I have with ultra liberal people because they tend to be just as hypocritical as the ultra right side. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and as we move forward with this film, we want to deal with injustice everywhere, wherever it stands”.
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One person in the audience, Pina Lostritto, 38, said the movie speaks to race relations today as much as it does to Antebellum America.
