Director Ava DuVernay (“Selma”) has secured the Opening Night spot at this year’s New York Film Festival, which runs from September 30-October 16, for her documentary “The 13th.” It’s the first ever non-fiction film to open the fest. Rest assured that those outside of the NY area will be able to catch “The 13th;” the film will premiere on Netflix and have a limited theatrical release on October 7.
DuVernay becomes the first female filmmaker in 12 years to open NYFF. The last woman director was Agnès Jaoui, whose film “Look At Me” opened the fest in 2004. Of the 54 opening night selections, DuVernay’s premiere will mark the fourth time a woman has opened the festival; Agnieszka Holland and Agnès Varda opened the 1992 and 1977 festivals respectively.
As the film’s official description details, “The 13th” chronicles the history of racial inequality in the U.S. and “examines how our country has produced the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with the majority of those imprisoned being African-American. 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.”
“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.”
“Ava gives us a remarkable and ambitious framework for understanding why the U.S. represents 5 percent of the world’s population, yet is home to nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Her work has been tireless and passion-fueled and has resulted in a sweeping view at a tenuous time. We are honored to provide a global platform for this deeply urgent work,” commented Lisa Nishimura, Netflix VP of Original Documentary Programming.
New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones added, “While I was watching ‘The 13th,’ the distinction between documentary and fiction gave way and I felt like I was experiencing something so rare: direct contact between the artist and right now, this very moment. In fact, Ava is actually trying to redefine the terms on which we discuss where we’re at, how we got here, and where we’re going. ‘The 13th’ is a great film. It’s also an act of true patriotism.”
Tickets for the 54th New York Film Festival will go on sale September 11.
