Last modified on Mon 10 May 2021 11.28 EDT
Barry Jenkins first heard the history of the Underground Railroad from a teacher when he was six or seven years old. The school lesson described the loose network of safe houses and abolitionists that helped enslaved people in the American south escape to free states in the north in the 19th century. Jenkins as a wide-eyed kid imagined an actual railroad, though, secret steam trains thundering under America, built by black superheroes in the dead of night. It was an image, he recalls, that made âanything feel possibleâ. âMy grandfather was a longshoreman,â he says. âHe came home every day, in his hard hat and his tool belt, and his thick boots. And I thought, âOh, yes, people like my granddad, they built this underground railroad!ââ
Played with rare determination by South African actress Thuso Mbedu, Cora has fled her Georgia shackles because she wants to know what freedom feels like
Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins had Donald Trump s slogan Make America Great Again on his mind, as we discussed his breathtaking ten-part television adaptation of Colson Whitehead s prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad.
It tells the story of Cora, a 14-year-old girl who escapes from a Southern plantation. She s a young woman born into the condition of American slavery, but she s also abandoned by her mother. she s always questioning her worth, Jenkins told me.
Played with rare determination by South African actress Thuso Mbedu, Cora has fled her Georgia shackles because she wants to know what freedom feels like.
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