*The New York Film Festival will break tradition this year and kick off the festivities with a documentary from director Ava DuVernay titled “The 13th.”
The project will make its world premiere at the 54th New York Film Festival, set to take place September 30 – October 16 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The documentary will also debut on Netflix and open in a limited theatrical run on October 7.
The film highlights the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the high rate of incarceration of Black Americans.
From the press release, the title of DuVernay’s “extraordinary and galvanizing film refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution—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 incarceration and the prison industry in the U.S. is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity.”
READ RELATED STORY: Ava DuVernay’s Mass Incarceration Doc ‘The 13th’ to Open New York Film Festival
The movie also touches notable moments in history, from D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” (1915) and the rebirth of the KKK, to the Civil Rights Movement, the 1994 Crime Bill, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“It is a true honor for me and my collaborators to premiere The 13th as the opening night selection of the New York Film Festival,” said DuVernay. “This film was made as an answer to my own questions about how and why we have become the most incarcerated nation in the world, how and why we regard some of our citizens as innately criminal, and how and why good people allow this injustice to happen generation after generation. I thank Kent Jones and the selection committee for inviting me to share what I’ve learned.”
