Steve McQueen has come aboard to direct Twelve Years a Slave, which will star Chiwetel Ejiofor in a true story about a New York man who was kidnapped in the mid-1800s and forced to become a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation.
Twelve Years a Slave is McQueen’s adaptation of Solomon Northup’s 1853 autobiography about a married, educated, free Black man who eventually was captured and enslaved while on a trip from New York City to Washington, D.C. Historians over the years have reportedly used Northup’s book as a guidebook to slave life in the early 1800s. The book goes in detail of the court case which led to Northup’s reclaimed freedom.
In the meantime, McQueen is preparing to unveil his latest fare Shame at the Venice Film Festival. The drama reunites him with Michael Fassbender in a story about a deviant sex addict who reconsiders his dark ways after his younger sister, played by Carey Mulligan, moves in with him. McQueen made waves with his riveting debut film Hunger, about the Irish hunger strike that starred Michael Fassbender and earned the emerging director the 2008 Cannes' Camera d'Or. Focus has its own feature rights package that include Fela’s music, while Brad Pitt's Plan B is producing Twelve Years a Slave.
Both, McQueen and Ejiofor are British. I am often baffled with Hollywood's decision-making to neglect, overlook and by-pass American talent, in this case, specifically Black American talent for films and directorships for a rare Hollywood funded film about Black American history with a non-stereotypical plot.
SMH!
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