We’re less than four months out from the October 7 release date of The Birth Of A Nation, Nate Parker’s buzz-heavy new movie about the 1831 slave rebellion of preacher-turned-revolutionary Nat Turner. Directed by and starring Parker, it’s a passion project that’s evoked an equally passionate response from critics, winning the Audience and U.S. Grand Jury prizes at this year’s Sundance.
Now we’ve got a new trailer for the historical drama, one that’s a bit more concerned with the nuts-and-bolts of Turner’s story than the more impressionistic one Fox Searchlight released in April. Tracking Turner’s life from his training as a tool of the plantation owners who used him to keep slaves docile and content to his leadership of a short-lived, Biblically-inspired rebellion, it’s full of all the stomach-churning injustices you’d expect from a movie about American slavery. The trailer skips over the hideously bloody end of Turner’s rebellion—no spoilers, but slave masters in the early 1800s really didn’t like it when their slaves rebelled—instead leaving on the less depressing, more uplifting note of Turner (and the soundtrack) urging the audience to rise up and fight.