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12 YEARS A SLAVE Words by
Nev Pierce Nev Pierce is editor-at-large for Empire
“Now 33 per cent of black males in jail, that’s 55 per cent of black students will fail, they say 85 per cent black folks forgot we were slaves – what’s up inside this box?” ‘Escapism’, Public Enemy To say 12 Years A Slave is an education and an entertainment feels contradictory and damning, but this is intended as nothing other than high praise: this is a film of rare and exquisite balance. It informs through immersion and transports with its performances and beauty – both loving and pitiless. There are shockingly few fi lms related to slavery and those that ping on awards’ radars tend to be grand narratives with white protagonists, such as Amistad (1997) or the BAFTA-nominated Lincoln (2012) – fi ne stories, but told from the