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The first trailer for Judas And The Black Messiah starring Daniel Kaluuya has landed.
Kaluuya portrays Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in the ’60s-set film, directed by Shaka King and produced by Ryan Coogler, with whom Kaluuya worked with on 2017’s Get Out.
The clip opens with Kaluuya as Hampton leading supporters in a chant of “I am a revolutionary”. Hampton was fatally shot by police during an apartment raid in 1969 when he was 21, an incident his supporters claimed was an FBI-supported assassination.
Also in the trailer is a first look at Lakeith Stanfield (Uncut Gems) as William O’Neal, an FBI informant who infiltrated the Black Panther party and was close to Hampton. Jesse Plemons (The Irishman) stars as the FBI agent who recruits O’Neal.
At the start of the trailer Hampton gives a passionate speech, saying: “You can murder a revolutionary but you can’t murder a revolution.“You can murder a freedom fighter but you can’t murder freedom.”
Coogler told a press conference in light of that speech: “For me, that quote is so powerful because it’s absolutely true. The thing that is so powerful about chairman Fred Hampton is that when he spoke, everything was true, he spoke universal truths that were so sharp it was like a truth that you didn’t recognise, like why did that never dawn on me before?” [quotes courtesy of PA].
“How is it that they murdered this man at 21 years of age, assassinated this man, calculated and tactically went in there and did what they did, and used misinformation afterwards.
Coogler continued: “And the people that were responsible for this, a lot of them are still alive, still around, these ideas are still ever present, these systems that chairman was fighting for to be demolished, or to raise awareness of.
“Their constant attacks on poor people, on black people, those systems are still here,” he said.
“The fact they assassinated him but we are still here today, this film is being made, and his son is still here speaking to some of those universal truths, proves the truth of that statement and how it relates to the fight today. We are still fighting the same beef, we are still fighting the same monsters, we are still fighting the same system, it hasn’t gone anywhere.”
Judas And The Black Messiah is slated for a 2021 release.
The post ‘Judas And The Black Messiah’ trailer: watch Daniel Kaluuya play Black Panther leader Fred Hampton appeared first on NME Music News, Reviews, Videos, Galleries, Tickets and Blogs | NME.COM.
