Next week, we will be scheduling a special moderated discussion so we may explore these issues together as artists and audience. But Variety reports that the event has just been canceled over concerns surrounding the resurfacing of sexual assault allegations against Parker and one of his Birth Of A Nation collaborators.
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It would have marked the first time Parker has appeared in public since the case resurfaced almost two weeks ago.
“Somebody has to have enough courage to tell the truth no matter what the consequences are”, said Sharpton, who called Parker’s attempt to “flip” the original Birth of a Nation movie that glorified the Ku Klux Klan into a story about Nat Turner “bold and audacious”. The woman said that they raped her while she was unconscious, while the men argued that the sex was consensual. Parker and Celestin were suspended from the wrestling team, and Parker transferred to an Oklahoma college. Fox Searchlight Pictures bought the worldwide rights to film for $17.5 million, the largest deal to date at the film festival.
By the time the festival was over, Nation had netted an unheard-of $17.5 million distribution deal from Fox Searchlight Pictures.It was considered a frontrunner for a raft of major awards, and Parker, who had carved out a solid if largely below-the-radar career as an actor, seemed poised to become a filmmaker of serious outcome – one of a handful of black directors able to claim as much. Parker was tried and acquitted in 2001, while Celestin was convicted, though the decision was then overturned on appeal.
It was recently revealed that the accuser committed suicide in 2012.
“We’ve had these issues before, to be honest … with controversial films that we have shown, but we still feel that we obviously stand behind the film”, Piers Handling, director and CEO of TIFF, tells The Canadian Press.
Parker is still scheduled to appear at the Toronto Film Festival, but a source in communication with him says that he’s in a low place.
“It’s a story that we still don’t see onscreen very often and so we wanted to invite the film, to bring it to Toronto to share it with our audience”.
After Sundance, the film was pegged as a serious Oscar contender and an important addition to an industry mired in diversity issues.
Parker initially addressed the fresh attention to the rape trial this summer with language that was seen by many as tone-deaf and self-centered.
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“That’s definitive, it’s definitely not going to happen”, a spokeswoman for the festival told Deadline when queried about missing conference.
