TIFF stands firm on film despite uproar
Festival determined to screen Nate Parker’s slave drama
The Toronto International Film Festival is determined to screen Nate Parker’s slave drama The Birth of a Nation, despite continuing uproar over accusations of rape in the filmmaker’s past.
“We stand behind the film,” TIFF director and CEO Piers Handling said in an interview Monday, making his first detailed public statement on the matter.
“It’s obviously a very important subject and it’s obviously very painful to see another story overwhelm the film, so I think we’re all being sensitive to the situation and treating it on a day-by-day basis.
“But, at this point in time, we absolutely have every intention of screening the film,” Handling says.
Distributor Fox Searchlight has also said it plans to proceed with the screenings, Handling added.
He predicted The Birth of a Nationwon’t be the only film at the festival to shake people up due to harsh subject matter.
That’s exactly how it should be, Handling said.
“A film like The Birth of a Nation, and the other films, question and challenge and are provocative. You never want the festival to turn into a safe festival that’s unafraid of controversy.”
A potent recounting of the 1831 Virginia slave rebellion that helped lead to slavery’s abolition in the U.S., The Birth of a Nation is scheduled for three screenings during the Sept. 8 to 18 festival, where it is to receive its international premiere.
Parker directed, co-produced, cowrote and stars in the film, playing lead character and historical figure Nat Turner.
It was coming to TIFF as a hot ticket with Sundance awards laurels, a planned major fall theatrical push and serious Oscar buzz. That was before a 17-year-old rape accusation against Parker and his co-writer Jean Celestin resurfaced last week. Parker and Celestin were charged with raping a female student in 1999 when all three were studying at Penn State University in Pennsylvania.
Parker insisted the sex was consensual, despite the woman’s testimony that she was drunk and unconscious, and he was acquitted. Celestin, then Parker’s roommate, was found guilty of rape but served only six months in jail until the conviction was overturned on appeal.
But discomfort over Parker’s past has grown over the more current revelation that the woman at the centre of the storm committed suicide in 2012, with her family saying she’d never fully recovered from the incident, which she claimed included later harassment by Parker and Celestin.
Parker posted on Facebook that he feels “profound sadness” about the woman’s death, while continuing to insist he’s not guilty of rape.
His denials aren’t silencing the growing number of people unhappy with how the rape case proceeded, with an organization called the Women’s Law Project joining the debate this week.
As reported in trade magazine Variety, the Women’s Law Project — which represented Parker’s accuser during the original trial — is calling for action to prevent the kind of acquittal that spared Parker from jail time.
“Our sex-crime laws need to be updated and stripped of archaic notions about sexual assault, such as those that impose, by word or practice, perpetual consent based on previous sexual relationships,” executive director Carol E. Tracy said in a statement posted on the organization’s blog.
“The criminal justice system must free itself of pervasive bias and victim-blaming.”
Tracy stopped short of calling for any kind of protest to be directed at Parker or his movie. And Handling and TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey declined to speculate on how The Birth of a Nation will be received by festivalgoers, although Bailey agreed with Handling that it’s important the screenings go ahead as planned, despite discomfiture about Parker’s past.
“It’s painful, it’s distressing and I don’t think there’s any way around that. But we believe that, at the end of the day, we have to keep our focus on what’s on screen,” Bailey said in a separate interview.
“And I still do believe that there’s real value in the story that’s being told. It hasn’t been told very often in the movies.”
Handling and Bailey were interviewed as they announced the last batch of nearly 400 features and shorts that will be screened at TIFF. Details are available online at tiff.net.
They proudly noted that films from a record 83 countries will be on offer, along with what they believe is a record percentage of films directed by women: 30 per cent this year, up from 24 per cent in 2015 and 20 per cent in 2014.
“We haven’t always counted, but I suspect this is the highest we’ve ever had,” Handling said of the female film quotient.
“And seven of the galas are directed by women, which is certainly the highest in my memory.”