Resurrected rape allegations and suicide of accuser derail Oscar favourite Nate Parker
“Festival fever” is the name the film industry gives to the inflated reception a movie can experience at a festival, where exuberant audiences and the competition of negotiations can ratchet up a film’s hype and price tag. But what can appear a surefire hit in the mountains of Sundance can turn into an expensive headache on the way to theatres.
As Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation continues to be enveloped in a rape case from 1999, Fox Searchlight — the art-house studio that plunked down a Sundance Film Festival record of US$17.5 million for the distribution rights to the Nat Turner slave rebellion drama — might be questioning its sizable investment.
The fortunes of The Birth of a Nation, to be released October 7, are very much in flux as the details of a 17-year-old rape accusation are derailing the film’s expected march into Oscar season. The Birth of a Nation, co-written, directed and starring Parker, has been celebrated as an urgent and important film for both an America roiled by protest over racial equality, and for Hollywood, which is still dealing with a diversity crisis.
But the newfound attention on Parker has dredged up a rape allegation made against him when he was a student and wrestler at Penn State University. Parker was acquitted, though his college roommate, Jean Celestin - who helped create The Birth of a Nation - was initially found guilty of sexual assault. That conviction was later overturned when the accuser declined to testify for a retrial.
The case garnered a lot of attention at Penn State. Parker and Celestin allegedly harassed the accuser on campus. The incident spawned a civil lawsuit by the woman against the college with a settlement of US$17,500.
Fox Searchlight on Wednesday declined to comment on the revelations. On Friday, the company said it stood behind Parker and the film.