Set in the South before the U.S. Civil War, the film follows Nat Turner,
a literate slave and preacher whose financially strained owner, Samuel Turner, accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves for remuneration. On his roams, Nat witnesses countless atrocities against himself and his fellow slaves. As he becomes radicalised, his eloquence, his charisma and his knowledge of Scripture become weapons deployed against his oppressors. It is only a matter of time before he spearheads an uprising in the hopes of leading his people to freedom. The name of the film is an ironic reference to a spectacular epic of the same name by David W. Griffith (1915) on U.S. Civil War and the so-called Recon- struction Era, which has become infamous for its stereotypical portrayal of African Americans and effort to make heroes out of Ku Klux Klan members. Parker’s picture, on the other hand, has joined the growing line of films by African American directors that reflect American history in the context of ongoing debate on racial tension and lingering inequality.