The first trailer for Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation. Parker’s project first caught my eye when I read he was raising money for a movie about Nat Turner.

Nat Turner, as a slave boy, is taught to read so he can study the Bible and be a preacher to fellow slaves. When Turner’s master takes him across the country on a preaching tour to profit from his preaching, Turner begins to see the scope of slavery and decides to become a different leader.

After The Birth of a Nation showed at Sundance, it blew audiences away and started a bidding war for the rights to the film. Now we get our first look at it and it looks amazing. I love the use of Nina Simone’s Strange Fruit.

 

The Birth of a Nation also stars Armie Hammer, Jackie Earle Haley, Gabrielle Union, and Aja Naomi King.