“It was the hardest film I’ve ever done. And when I make a film like this, the hope is that through understanding, through representation, no one in the audience will be able to sit in the theater audience and not feel sparks of compassion and empathy. By clearing up these historical confusions, we will be able to empty out this hateful rhetoric that is happening through the voices of ignorance on all sides,” Will Smith told syringes about his new film, Emancipation: A Story of Freedom, which premieres worldwide on Apple TV+ this Friday the 9th.
This is the first film Will Smith is releasing since slapping Chris Rock during this year’s Academy Awards after a joke by the comedian about the illness of the actor’s wife, Jada PinklettSmith. Will Smith gave an interview with syringes with the condition to speak only of “emancipation”.
The feature film, starring and producing Will Smith, is directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”, “The Equalizer”) and is the actor’s first project since the incident at this year’s Oscars when he met actorcomedian Chris Rock slapped, debuted .
Since then, Will has kept a low profile and emerged from seclusion to release the film, which tells the true story of Peter (Smith), an enslaved man fighting for his freedom. In the midst of the American Civil War (18611865), he escaped slavery by fleeing the South, where the Confederate States defended the slave system, to fight for the Union Army in the North, which defended abolition. It was then that thenPresident Abraham Lincoln declared the “Emancipation” (or Emancipation Proclamation) of January 1, 1863, which provided that all enslaved people in “rebellious states” would henceforth be free.
When Peter heard the news and understood that the enslaved who fought alongside Union soldiers would gain freedom, Peter decided to escape the hard work he had done building a railroad in the southern United States. On the run from sadistic hunters chasing him through the swamps of Louisiana, Peter had his unwavering faith and love for his family to give him the strength to embark on a journey from hell.
The starting point for the creation of the screenplay were the real photos, which in 1863 captured the horror of the scars that “Peter whipte” (Peter whipped) wore on his back. The pictures, taken during a Union Army medical examination, were published in Harper’s Weekly magazine, and one of those photos, which became famous as “As Costas Açoitadas” (The Scourged Back), opened up to the world and showed Peter’s bare back , who was mutilated by the lashes of his enslavers at how absurd the logic of slavery was, which caused a worldwide outcry and contributed to public opposition to the slave system.
“The combination of ignorance and fear creates what we know and think of as evil. The concept of evil is almost entirely ignorance mixed with fear. And I think the only antidote is to create some kind of empathy through understanding. So, “If I make a film like this, I hope it comes through understanding, through representation,” added Will Smith of Emancipation: A Story of Freedom.