1999 Rape Case Swirls Around Nate Parker and His Film ‘The Birth of a Nation’

MOVIES
1999 Rape Case Swirls Around Nate
Parker and His Film ‘The Birth of anNation’
By
CARA BUCKLEY and SERGE F. KOVALESKI
AUG. 16, 2016
“The Birth of a Nation,”
a drama about the Nat Turner slave rebellion, upended the Sundance Film Festival, selling for a record $17.5 million and instantly vaulting to front-runner of next year’s Oscar race.

Scheduled to be released Oct. 7, the film is now attracting unwanted attentionbecause of renewed interest in a 17-year-old case in which the film’s director,writer and star,Nate Parker, was accused — and later acquitted — of rape when hewas a student at Penn State.