A pioneering force for change in modern Hollywood, Selma director Ava DuVernay is arriving on Netflix next month with a hard-hitting documentary about race in America. It’s called 13th and it has a new trailer you can watch below.
The doc’s title refers to the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, a piece of legislation that decrees: “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…”
As the film charts in a chronological journey through 20th and 21st century history, slavery and involuntary servitude has been surrogated and superseded by mass incarceration.
DuVernay will get in and strip away some of the myths around America’s huge prison system, speaking to politicians and public figures along the way. Sharing their views are civil right activists Angela Davis and Michelle Alexander, lobbyist Grover Norquist, politician Cory Booker and fact-proof Republican grandee Newt Gingrich.
13th lands on Netflix globally on 7 October. DuVernay also has Disney’s live-action movie A Wrinkle In Time lined-up as her first blockbuster.