Second Clip Released Shows The Desperate Side Of Being ’12 Years A Slave’

HUNGER and SHAME’s acclaimed director Steve McQueen looks to past in the forthcoming historical biopic 12 YEARS A SLAVE. Even at this early stage, following a number of festival screenings, the biopic of the well-educated New York man Soloman Northup, is the early Oscar favourite in the film charting his hellish time of being beaten and sold into slavery during the 1850s.

A second clip has surfaced featuring the lead character, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, as he tries to come to terms with his harrowing new predicament, when only days earlier he was a well-to-do husband and father with a very bright future.

Based on a true story, 12 YEARS A SLAVE is a riveting account of a free black man kidnapped from New York and sold into brutal slavery in mid-1850s Louisiana, and the inspiring story of his desperate struggle to return home to his family.

SOLOMON NORTHUP (Chiwtel Ejiofor), an educated black man with a gift for music, lives with his wife and children in Saratoga, New York. One day, when his family is out of town, he is approached by two men claiming to be circus promoters. Solomon agrees to travel with them briefly, playing the fiddle while they perform. But after sharing a drink with the men, he awakens to find he has been drugged and bound and faces a horrifying reality: he is being shipped to the South as a slave.

No one listens to Solomon’s claim that he has papers proving his status as a free man. Despairing, he plots his escape, only to be foiled at every turn. He is sold to WILLIAM FORD, a kindly mill owner who appreciates Solomon’s thoughtful nature. But Ford is forced to sell him to a cruel master who subjects him and other slaves to unspeakable brutality. For years, Solomon nurtures his dreams of returning home. He stashes slips of stolen paper in his fiddle and develops a natural ink with which to write a letter. But when his greatest efforts come to nothing, he realizes just how trapped he is. Even if he could write the letter without being caught, where would he send it? Whom could he trust to deliver it? And will he even survive long enough to be rescued?

Refusing to abandon hope, Solomon watches helplessly as those around him succumb to violence, crushing emotional abuse and hopelessness. He realizes that he will have to take incredible risks, and depend on the most unlikely people, if he is ever to regain his freedom and be reunited with his family.

The supporting cast is outstanding with McQueen reunited with muse Michael Fassbender, as well as Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Garret Dillahunt, Paul Giamatti, Scoot McNairy, Lupita Nyong’o, Adepero Oduye, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt, Michael Kenneth Williams and Alfre Woodard. 12 YEARS A SLAVE is released in the US on the 18th October and the UK on the 24th January 2014.