13TH — Trailer

added: Mon, Sep 26th '16

Since breaking through with 2014's critically acclaimed MLK drama "Selma," filmmaker Ava DuVernay has kept herself extremely busy. She recently created and launched a television drama series with Oprah Winfrey, titled "Queen Sugar." And she's currently in the early stages of directing the big-screen adaptation of the popular fantasy novel "A Wrinkle in Time."

Between all of that, DuVernay found time to produce and direct a new thought-provoking documentary for Netflix, called "13TH." The film delves into the complex history of America's massive prison system and its adverse effects on African American communities.

The documentary, which its title refers to the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the amendment that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, "except as a punishment for crime"), is set to premiere next week, Friday, October 7. Watch the trailer, above.

synopsis:
The title of Ava DuVernay's extraordinary and galvanizing documentary 13TH refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States." The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. With a potent mixture of archival footage and testimony from a dazzling array of activists, politicians, historians, and formerly incarcerated women and men, DuVernay creates a work of grand historical synthesis.

directed by Ava DuVernay

release date October 7, 2016 (on Netflix)