It is not a stretch to call The Birth of a Nation one of the most eagerly anticipated films of 2016—since premiering at Sundance to rave reviews earlier this year, it has become, for better or for worse, the ostensible “corrective” to the #OscarsSoWhite narrative that’s hung over the Academy Awards as of late. We’ve still got months to go before it’s released theatrically on Oct. 7, but the first full trailer is here, and with it we get a better sense of director and star Nate Parker’s retelling of the infamous Nat Turner slave rebellion.
It appears at least part of the story will go back to Nat as a child, with a scene in which he is discouraged from reading. (The books “are full of things you’re kind wouldn’t understand,” a white woman tells the boy.) Later in life as a young man, he struggles to suppress his outrage over oppression, the seeds of rebellion planted within him with each lashing of the whip or other horrifying interaction with white slave owners. Unsurprisingly, the trailer builds to that historical, bloody confrontation, played out in dramatic slow motion.
This trades in the haunting sounds of Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit” as heard in the previous teaser for the film for an inspirational ballad from up-and-comer Andra Day—as a result, the overall effect is not quite as visceral. Even still, the imagery is striking and powerful. October can’t come soon enough.
