‘Birth of a Nation’ slavery film stumbles in Hollywood

THE AMERICAN Film Institute has called off a Los Angeles screening of slavery movie “The Birth of a Nation” amid controversy over an old rape case involving the film’s director just as Hollywood’s awards season swings into gear. The screening, scheduled for today at the AFI, was to be followed by a question and answer session with director Nate Parker in what would have been Parker’s first public event since it emerged last week that the accuser in his 1999 rape trial and acquittal committed suicide in 2012.