“And a lot of people I talk to don’t know the story of Nat Turner”.
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Parker was also asked about the sex assault drama during a cast press conference on Sunday (11Sep16). But this is a forum for the film (and) for the other people that are sitting on this stage. The way we ran our set, there was no hierarchy.
“This movie is so much bigger than me, than Nate, but it includes all of us in moving this conversation forward”, Union explained to the Associated Press (AP) on Saturday (10Sep16) at a junket for the film at the Toronto International Film Festival.
“Birth of a Nation” swept all top categories at the Sundance Film Festival Awards in January, becoming only the fourth film to capture all of the festival’s highest honors.
Gabrielle Union says the vast majority of people have been extremely supportive after she wrote an essay about her own rape. “I never wanted it to feel like any one person was above or more important than anyone”.
“The Birth of a Nation” has appeared poised for award season accolades well before its arrival in Toronto.
Movie studio Fox Searchlight said it stands by the movie, despite speculation in Hollywood that the rape case will affect the film’s marketing and jeopardize its Oscar chances.
Parker is front-and-centre in the film, as director, co-writer and lead star, in the role of Nat Turner, an American-born slave turned preacher who led an 1831 slave rebellion in Virginia that is seen as an important step toward the eventual abolition of slavery in the U.S. Parker said at the press conference that, while he can’t speak on behalf of Fox Searchlight’s publicity strategy, the speaking tour he planned to mount at colleges and churches will continue.
In the end, Parker said he didn’t want to “hijack” the press conference with his personal life. Even just the legacy of Nat Turner.
But Murray’s question triggered a passionate outpouring from actors who were determined to make it clear that they, not just the writer-producer-actor-director Parker, had made the movie. It’s not mine. I don’t own it.
Union stressed that in making The Birth of Nation, the cast and crew were “creating a movement”. Yes, we are actively addressing and pushing back against oppression. But when I made this film, and I often say it, healing comes with confrontation with the past. And although you don’t have to resort to violence, sparking conversation among us can be a stab at the darkness enveloping some parts of the world – where we can cure ignorant, insidious points of view.
Parker was acquitted of the rape charge, but the woman involved in the case later committed suicide in 2012.
“Whatever issue you have, whatever apprehension, bring it with you to the theater, get your ticket and bring that apprehension with you to the theater”, she continued, “because we need our art to tell us who we are, because we are living in a system where we are being told who we are not”.
“Yes, [the movie is] addressing racial inequity, but that movement is inclusive”, she said.
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“There is the slave story, but there is also a very powerful women’s story about women’s rights as well that I think also needs to be told”.
