Ava DuVernay's 14th makes its world premiere tonight as the Closing Night film of the 64th New York Film Festival, exactly a decade after her documentary 13th opened the same festival in 2016. The film is distributed by Netflix and was produced through DuVernay's collective Array.
The documentary examines the 14th Amendment: birthright citizenship, due process, equal protection under the law, and the bar on heads of state engaging in insurrection. DuVernay traces the history of these guarantees from Reconstruction to the present, drawing on voices across the political spectrum. Among those interviewed: Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Anna Paulina Luna, former Senator Jeff Flake, Senator Alex Padilla, Stacey Abrams, legal scholars Sherrilyn Ifill and Robert Chang, and commentators Donald T. Critchlow and Hasan Piker.
NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim called 14th "a movie for the moment that sees through the fog of the present." DuVernay, an Emmy, BAFTA, Sundance, and Peabody Award winner and Oscar nominee, will attend tonight's premiere at Alice Tully Hall alongside participants from the film. "Exactly a decade after 13th opened the New York Film Festival," she said, "it feels especially meaningful to return."
13th, which argued that loopholes in the 13th Amendment contributed to the mass incarceration of Black Americans, was released on the eve of Donald Trump's first presidency. 14th arrives in a parallel political climate, interrogating protections the film treats as essential and endangered. A Netflix streaming date has not been announced.
