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World Premiere of Ava DuVernay’s THE 13th

This galvanizing nonfiction film about mass criminalization and the legacy of slavery is the first documentary to ever open NYFF.

Ava DuVernay interviewing Angela Davis / Photo courtesy of Netflix

Chronicling the history of racial inequality in the U.S., The 13th examines how the US 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 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…” 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, the rise of ALEC, and the Black Lives Matter movement, DuVernay traces a pattern of fear and division that has consistently driven mass criminalization.

For more on the New York Film Festival & The 13th please visit the appropriate links.