This Nation.

    Have you guys heard of the movie Birth of a Nation? Well, I have and the background to the development of the movie is very interesting. We all know the star of the movie is Nate Parker, he was the leading male in Beyond the Lights. Not only was he the star, he was the writer, producer, and director. Picture that huh? An African American leading character combined with an African American director, producer, and writer... That will never sell, some may say but it took a different toll due to persistence and determination given by Parker.
   After the filming of the romance Beyond the Lights, Nate Parker said he wouldn't be acting anymore or not again until he got the chance to play the "American revolutionary" Nat Turner. Education was the one E that stood out the me the most when I read this part of the article. It was educational because he was willing to take a break for a while before starting back up again or even stop all together just to play someone who made a huge difference to history that maybe a lot of us do not know about. It gave me the idea that you can come back stronger even when you take a break. He stopped working for a total of two years giving all his time and money to this movie. Considering, he's been writing the script for seven years. He grew up in Virginia where they didn't teach him the story of Nat Turner but an African American studies class in college did, giving him inspiration. That also stood out to me as educational because my school never put in the time to teach us on African American history; I believe they just didn't know much about it. Also, the name of the film was the title of D.W. Griffith's 1915 KKK propaganda film.
    The enlightening portion of the article was when he went to meet with investors, they knocked the idea down. What was said to Parker was "movies with black leads don't play internationally; a period film with big fight scenes would be too expensive; it was too violent; it wouldn't work without a big box-office star leading it' Turner was too controversial - after all, he was responsible for the deaths of dozens of well-off white landowners." This enlightened me on the controversy of the world; it shows how quick someone will deny making a film based off of race and background.
     Entertaining all together, from the background of the development to the finishing product. It took 27 days to shoot the film which included a lot of various emotions on set because of the time period of the story line. Parker is a wrestling coach for undeserved kids and he knew how to keep the spirits high on set. He believes that anybody who watches it should be able to see what this country was built on, rebellion.

Title of article: 'Birth of Nation': The Slave-Revolt Movie That Will Have Sundance Talking
By: Rebecca Ford

 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/birth-a-nation-slave-revolt-857177