Apple today premiered its first screening of Emancipation, the thriller directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Will Smith, an enslaved man who, after recovering from a beating that nearly killed him, braved the swamps of Louisiana armed his wits to escape slave hunters in cold blood and be free.
Both Smith and Fuqua made their first public comments about the film in a subsequent discussion after this afternoon’s private screening, held during the 51st Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in DC. Apple hasn’t set a date yet, but this is the strongest clue that the film will head into awards season, a much rougher path due to Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock at the last few Oscars.
The film has garnered a lot of notoriety since Apple won the rights to make it in a record-breaking auction. Written by William N. Collage, Emancipation was inspired by photographs taken in 1863 of Peter when the formerly enslaved man joined the Union Army in hopes of finding his family. The photos were seen around the world and incited resistance to slavery as barbaric. The images were a symbolic precursor to the photos of Emmett Till’s battered body, the Rodney King video, and later the George Floyd video. Emancipation was considered a contender for grand prize season until the Oscar blow that resulted in Smith being banned from the Academy for 10 years.
Apple Original Films and the NAACP hosted the screening for a group of community members representing groups including the Congressional Black Caucus, Historically Black Caucus, Historically Black College and Universities, the Divine 9 (Historically Black Fraternities and Sororities) , the National Council of Negro Women, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Power Rising, #WinWithBlackWomen and other social impact leaders.
We weren’t privy to the post-screening conversation with Fuqua, Smith, and Mary Elliott, Curator of American Slavery at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Hosted by political and cultural commentator Angela Rye, it was the director and star’s first public commentary on the film.
The inevitable tweets roll in, focusing on the discourse of a historically important topic. Here is an example. Will audiences and the crowd of award winners look beyond the distraction to the substance of an important film? We’ll know soon enough.
I had the pleasure of seeing the film #Emancipation and can’t begin to express how powerful this is for OUR community and OUR story. It’s a story of adversity, resilience, love and triumph.
Thank you Antoine Fuqua and Will Smith for sharing your gifts!#Thisispower
— Derrick Johnson (@DerrickNAACP) October 1, 2022
“[We] are living proof of survival.” – Mary Elliott, curator
of American Slavery in the Smithsonian National Museum of
African history and culture at the demonstration of emancipation. pic.twitter.com/JP8Zk8MjcQ— Tonya J Williams (@tonyajwillms) October 1, 2022