The 13th

Ava DuVernay‘s latest documentary, ‘13th,’ couldn’t be arriving at a more relevant time. Urgent, angry and unflinching, the documentary looks at the current state of mass incarceration and police militarization, attempting to understand why the United States contains 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, which today is 2.3 million people. Opening this Friday just weeks after the largest prison strike in U.S. history, a month shy of the 2016 Presidential Election, and following a year full of harrowing violence against the black community, ‘13th’ feels like essential viewing now more than ever.

What if America is still living in an era of slavery? What if the abolition of slavery led to a collective consciousness that aligned people of color with definitions of criminality? That’s the argument Ava DuVernay’s latest documentary ‘The 13th’ makes, suggesting that for over a hundred and fifty years a societal behavior has developed where slavery can still exist under the guise of the mass incarceration.

In its 54 years, the New York Film Festival has never opened with a work of non-fiction, until now. This year’s festival will kick off with what may be one of the most important and politically relevant films of the year, Ava DuVernay’s documentary ‘The 13th,’ about the U.S. prison industry and the nation’s history of racial inequality.