Emancipation (2022) on Netflix
Peter, an enslaved man in Louisiana, is taken from his wife and children to a Confederate labor camp. He escapes into the swamps, with the slave hunter Fassel and dogs in pursuit.
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- Netflix2.7/5
- IMDb6.3/1031,937 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes45%
Trailer
Plot summary
On a Louisiana cotton plantation in 1863, Peter prays with his family before armed men drag him away. He calls to his wife Dodienne and their children to stay together until he returns for them. At a Confederate camp in Clinton, Louisiana, he labors beside other conscripted slaves who are whipped, branded and set upon by dogs, and he urges the disheartened men to believe in God and pray. Peter attacks a guard, and he and several others flee into the swamps. He carries no supplies and has no clear route to Union-held Baton Rouge, while the slave catcher Fassel and his men hunt him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Emancipation (2022)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Filming had been set to begin in Georgia on June 21, 2021, but moved elsewhere over the recently enacted Election Integrity Act of 2021; Smith and Fuqua said they could not in good conscience support a government enacting regressive voting laws, and the move was reported to have cost approximately $15 million.
- The film is loosely based on a self-emancipated slave known as either Gordon or 'Whipped Peter', whose photograph of a bare back heavily scourged from an overseer's whippings was published worldwide as a magazine illustration in 1863 and gave the abolitionist movement proof of the cruelty of slavery.
- The controversy over Smith slapping Chris Rock at the March 2022 94th Academy Awards was cited in May 2022, when the film's release was delayed to a tentative 2023 date, although principal photography had already moved forward in the summer of 2021.
