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.” And now Netflix has released the first trailer for the film, which shows how a loophole in the 13th Amendment has led to the country’s mass incarceration issues.
The title of DuVernay’s “extraordinary and galvanizing documentary,” the official synopsis explains, “refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads ‘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 criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. With a potent mixture of archival footage and testimony from a dazzling array of activists, politicians, historians, and formerly incarcerated women and men, DuVernay creates a work of grand historical synthesis.”
“The 13th” is the first documentary to open NYFF, and DuVernay is the first female director to open the festival in 12 years.
After premiering on opening night at NYFF, the film will hit Netflix, along with a limited theatrical run, on October 7.
