13th
It is obvious that we have a deep and documented view of the prison system in the United States of America. Here we see a comprehensive contemplative view through the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in the United States, where the law states that there is no forced servitude except as a penalty for a crime for which the party has been duly convicted must be present within the United States. That text gives us room to present a range of events and documents about the US prison system alongside the history of racial inequality within the United States.
January 3, 1981 in Fairfax, California, USA
9 January 1913, Yorba Linda, California, USA
8 September 1941, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
4 November 1916, St. Joseph, Missouri, USA
30 October 1961, Los Angeles, California, USA
26 October 1947, Chicago, Illinois, USA
6 July 1921, New York City, New York, USA
April 12, 2017
What the film does beautifully, is its connecting of a thread that runs through the past one hundred and fifty years; we did not come to this place in history by accident.
February 22, 2017
Watching this documentary makes it clear that there has been a problem with incarceration used as an economic and political driver for a long time and that action must be taken to change this.
December 28, 2016
Given the concerns about relations between law enforcement and minority communities, 13th could hardly be timelier.
January 05, 2017
Director Ava DuVernay ('Selma') has made a very powerful and provocative documentary film which highlights a clear danger to American democracy. It shows how America's enormous prison industry and its largely black population came to be.
November 09, 2016
Manages to capture the depth and insidiousness of more than a century of cultural, societal and economic oppression along racial lines and then condenses it into a brisk 100-minute package that could literally slip right into your pocket.
December 28, 2016
In its sweeping treatment of the history of American racism, the film brought me closer than I've ever been to understanding how it could be that so many people could have ever grown used to the moral catastrophes that were slavery and Jim Crow.
October 13, 2016
13th ... is dense with information, and it moves fast. But it's also a story told in images, and the ones DuVernay has chosen ring not just with sadness and horror but also cautious optimism.
December 09, 2016
It's all very alarming and upsetting and terrifying.
March 01, 2017
[DuVernay's] movie, for all its good words and bad pictures, lacks the fierce urgency of now.
December 28, 2016
It's an absolute must-see.
December 28, 2016
It's a crazy amount of ground to cover, but only rarely does 13th sacrifice clarity for cinematic energy.
February 01, 2017
A hard, painful and necessary documentary with well-presented interviews, which helps us understand similar situations that are also present in Mexico. [Full review in Spanish]
