12 Years a Slave - Trailer - GB/USA

16mm Film - 12 Years a Slave - Trailer - GB/USA 2013

Direction: Steve McQueen

Script: John Ridley, based on the autobiography by Solomon Northup

Camera: Sean Bobbitt

Music: Hans Zimmer

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dwight Henry, Dickie Gravois, Bryan Batt, Ashley Dyke, Kelsey Scott, Quvenzhané Wallis, Cameron Zeigler, Tony Bentley, Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam, Christopher Berry, Bill Camp, Mister Mackey Jr., Chris Chalk, Craig Tate, Adepero Oduye, Storm Reid, Tom Proctor, Marc Macaulay, Vivian Fleming-Alvarez, Michael Kenneth Williams, Douglas M. Griffin, John McConnell, Marcus Lyle Brown, Richard Holden, Rob Steinberg, Paul Giamatti, Anwan Glover, Benedict Cumberbatch, James C. Victor, Liza J. Bennett, Nicole Collins, J.D. Evermore, Paul Dano, Michael Fassbender, Sarah Paulson, Lupita Nyong'o, and others.

In the New York of 1841, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) was a free man, married with children and a lucrative job as a violinist. But at a supposed working dinner, he is drugged by his hosts, robbed of his identity and sold into slavery. The slave trader Freeman (Paul Giamatti) ships him to the southern states, where he is sold to the plantation owner Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). He is a cultured man who also notices and recognizes Solomon's talents as a musician, but for the first time the once 'free man' also learns about the fate of the other slaves at close quarters. A quarrel with the overseer Tibeats (Paul Dano) ends the relatively good time, as Ford sells him to Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), a notorious man who beats and abuses his slaves, in order to create peace. In his cotton fields, Solomon quickly learns that in order to survive, you have to fit in and not stand out. His plan to reclaim his real life, however, dwindles year by year...