The crowd was there to see the first festival screening of the lightning-rod film since its Sundance premiere, as well as writer-director-producer-star Nate Parker and 17 members of his cast and crew, who joined him onstage for post-film Q&A sessions.
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Parker was facing a roomful of press for the first time since the details of a 1999 rape allegation against Parker surfaced.
But during a TV interview with Reuters, he swerved the conversation back to the film about slave preacher Nat Turner, who led a rebellion in Virginia in 1831, and his role in American history.
“I would just say I’ve addressed it, and I’m sure in future forums I will address it more”, Parker said. Earlier at the press conference, Union said she had always wanted to be involved somehow in a film about Nat Turner: “I don’t care if I’m craft service or grip”. I do not own it. “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?”
“I think one of the lovely things we can all relate to Nate…. uh Nat…”, she stuttered during last night’s Q&A, “is that we’re all capable of evolution”.
On Sunday, New York Times reporter Cara Buckley referenced issues separating the art from the artist, and asked Parker why he had never apologized to the victim or her family, and if he would now.
The event went off without problems and Parker received a standing ovation. This is a forum for the film.
She has been outspoken about her discomfiture with Parker’s personal history but said it mustn’t be allowed to override the movie’s essential civil rights message, when the film is put into wide release, scheduled for October 7.
Parker introduced the film and participated in a moderated question-and-answer session about it, they added.
“I definitely don’t want to hijack (this press conference) with my personal life”, Parker told the assembled press scrum, according to reporter in attendance for the industry trade.
Personal questions about past rape allegations were bound to come up when Nate Parker faced the media Sunday for The Birth of a Nation.
When asked about Union’s op-ed, Parker said “Gabrielle’s been a close friend and we talk all the time, all the time“. “I’m a filmmaker. I feel like this is my calling”, Parker said to the question about double standards. “I just want to honor this film and move it forward”. There are 400-plus people who worked on this film. “I think we’re all craving acknowledgment that we’re real, that we exist, that we live among you, that we are your mothers, your brothers, your sisters, your lovers”.
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She continued: “Nat Turner was firmly committed tot his faith, but it was s faith that enforced and encourage his subservience and of those that looked like him”. And I had to think about it.
