"Truth Is Truth:" Steve McQueen On Making "12 Years A Slave"

Lean close and gaze at what art historians refer to as the "Mona Lisa of photography"––the eight small copper daguerreotype panels of the "1848 Cincinnati Panorama" by Charles Fontayne and Williams S. Porter, one of the oldest photographs of an urban city. Look closer, thanks to cutting edge digital technology and the incredible resolution of the daguerreotype method and see what experts describe as the first candid images of free African Americans.

Trace these tiny figures busy at work, perhaps some at play, on the Ohio River landing, and think back to the 19th century and thousands of African Americans settling north in search of new lives away from injustices in the south. Imagine the everyday fears of these free men and women may have had––the worry about being captured and returned to bondage due to laws favoring slave owners.

Jump 165 years and watch English actor Chiwetel Ejiofor and London–born, Amsterdam–based filmmaker Steve McQueen bring to vivid life this nightmare of lost freedom and revisited cruelty in 12 Years a Slave, the true story of Solomon Northup, a free African American in Saratoga, New York, who's kidnapped in 1841, sold into slavery and ends up working on a Louisiana plantation for 12 years until regaining his rightful freedom in 1853.

Read Full Story