Staff Writer
The highly anticipated and, what critics are calling, a sure Oscar nod for director Steve Mc Queen’s 12 Years a Slave has released its first clip.
The biopic is based on Solomon Northup’s 1853 autobiography Twelve Years a Slave – who will be played by Endgame star Chiwetel Ejiofor – and centres around a free man in the 19th century who is kidnapped and forced to work on a plantation for 12 years before being released.
Check out the clip released by Vulture below:
Steve McQueen is best known for his gripping, award winning films Hunger, and Shame starring Michael Fassbender, who will once again be partnering up with McQueen on the 12 Years a Slave cast alongside Benedict Cumberbatch; the pair star as two slave owners.
At the 12 Years a Slave press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival, McQueen commented on the fact that there are those that may have found and will find the film unpleasant and hard to watch, saying “From the response in Toronto, people want [this realism]. Everyone’s an adult here; they know how to deal with it. It’s not about sort of sugarcoating it. We’re here to do something that we feel is necessary.”
Both Fassbender and Ejiofor were in agreement with their director on the brutal reality of the film, Fassbender explained that documented history forced them to portray the truth and commented saying, “It’s easy. We were just there to facilitate. What’s tricky is when people try to sugarcoat it or start messing with it. It is what it is.”
Ejoiofor agreed wholeheartedly with his co-star saying, “To not show it as explicitly as we can would I think be a disservice to [Northup] and his family. What’s the point in telling the story if we couldn’t tell the story?”
Steve then continued to explain the film themes beyond that race and slavery saying, “This film for me is about love, a discussion about human dignity … It’s a fight for soul, it’s a war for his spirit. It’s a very silent war, but a war none the less.”
This is definitely one of the most highly anticipated and buzzed about films to hit the big screen this year and we’ll all be waiting patiently for the Oscars to see how it does.
The film also stars Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story), Paul Dano (Looper) and Brad Pitt (who produced the film) will also make an appearance in the film as Samuel Bass, a Canadian carpenter.
12 Years a Slave premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2013, before screening at the TIFF on September 6. It will hit the New York Film Festival in October.
12 Years a Slave will be released on October 18 in the US and on January 24 in the UK.
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