Nyff 2013

[Chris Knipp]

Another title added to the NYFF: Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave

For details go here. The film's US premiere, this will be screened as a special Film Comment selecton.

Cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o, Adepero Oduye, Paul Dano, Brad Pitt and Alfre Woodard. McQueen's third film with Fassbender. Brad Pitt is a producer.

12 Years A Slave is based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York who was abducted in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and brought to slave trader James Burch (Paul Giamatti) who sold him to a gentleman farmer named William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). He was then sold to a mentally unbalanced cotton grower, named Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), whose cruelty embodies the evils of slavery.--FSLC.