PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Nate Parker and Spike Lee, director and producer of the film American Skin.
Nate Parker and Spike Lee are the director and producer of American Skin, presented in the Sconfini section at the 76th Venice Film Festival. Spike Lee got on board when Nate Parker, former director of The Birth of a Nation, had already shot the film. American Skin is a film and a project as it aims at connecting people, at creating a dialogue between different people. In the film, Nate Parker plays a veteran who is seeking justice for the killing of his 14-year-old son, by a policeman who thought the boy was holding a gun. Parker tries to find a different way to try and put an end to the many injustices Afro-american people have to face in the United States. The only solution is the dialogue and that’s why Spike Lee blessed the project.
American Skin: Lincoln Jefferson is a Marine veteran. Now stateside, he works as a custodian in a prestigious California high school–a job he secured only to ensure enrollment in the school to his 14-year old son KJ. One night, Lincoln and KJ are stopped by police and an altercation leads to the fatal shooting of the unarmed boy. Hopeful the system will provide a trial, Lincoln is dismayed to learn the officer responsible for pulling the trigger will go uncharged and will return to active duty without an indictment. The protagonist desperately takes the matter into his own hands in a series of events he hopes will finally lead to justice for his son.