Nate Parker dodges rape allegation questions at TIFF press conference

A week after that piece, Parker addressed the accusation in a Facebook post, in which he stressed his innocence and confessed that he didn’t know that his alleged victim had committed suicide. “Why haven’t you, and would you now?”

“I’ve addressed it a few times“, he answered.

Speaking at the film’s Toronto International Film Festival premiere, where the film recieved a standing ovation from the audience, Union said, “For a lot of different reasons this film’s going to be hard to see for a lot of people, and I get it”.

So maybe that’s why I feel different from those people who plan on boycotting this film. It does not belong to me, so I definitely don’t want to hijack this movie. That is my sole goal, and I’ve been by joined by so many advocates and allies on our cast and worldwide who say this is uncomfortable and everything makes me so angry, but I recognize that there is a movement that I want to be a part of, and that movement is education about sexual violence, toxic masculinity, misogyny, rape culture. “As important and ground-breaking as this film is, I can not take these allegations lightly”, she wrote in early September. And I think this film will be part of that education, showing someone that had the fortitude to fight back in the way they did then – and now we can fight back with art.

It’s clear that Parker wants to separate The Birth of a Nation (which features an off-camera rape scene with real-life sexual assault victim Gabrielle Union) from his own personal narrative. Both found their interviews cut short when their line of questioning strayed into forbidden territory.

Nate Parker’s interview with CBC reporter Eli Glasner was rather more eventful. At the same time, I am the man that I am.

“To anyone who says, ‘I’m going to stay home, ‘ I’m going to say to them that whatever issue you have [and] whatever apprehension you have, bring that with you to the theater”, Ellis said.

When Weston sat down with Hammer, the same thing happened to him. So Weston tried again.

“To me, this isn’t the Nate Parker story – this is the Nat Turner story”, said Miller. Looking to get the conversation back on his film, Parker and his cast on Sunday talked extensively about the film’s message about injustices past, and present.

Nate Parker attends the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival premiere of “The Birth Of A Nation” Premiere at Winter Garden Theatre on September 9, 2016 in Toronto, Canada.

“As a woman, and as someone who believes strongly in social justice for everybody, it’s very upsetting to me when we have narratives that are so myopic and that exclude voices of women”, she said. “We’re oozing puss from wounds that we have not addressed”.

I keep thinking about how I will be cheated of the historical significance of this film if I followed these people and decided not to watch it.

The news conference ended with journalists still clambering to pose questions, so it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the publicity campaign unfolds ahead of the movie’s October 7 theatrical release. There is a space and place for everyone.