Nate Parker

When Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation debuted at the Sundance Film Festival last January, it got a standing ovation before its premiere. People were excited to see this movie. Nine months later, the reaction to its arrival in theaters is a little bit different.

The controversy surrounding The Birth of a Nation has soured the wild success of what very well could be one of this year’s Oscar contenders. After the news went public that the director and star Nate Parker had been accused of raping a classmate when he was in college at Penn State, but then was acquitted, it was all anyone could talk about in reference to the film. Parker himself has answered questions about it in interviews before and seems very open to discuss the incident, although careful never to admit guilt, and now CBS has posted a preview clip of their 60 Minutes interview with him that will air this weekend.

Fox Searchlight may be continuing their fall release plans for Nate Parker‘s ‘The Birth of the Nation,’ but that doesn’t mean other early screenings will go according to plan. The American Film Institute announced on Tuesday they’ve canceled a planned screening of this film this Friday in wake of Parker’s 1999 sexual assault case that’s recently garnered attention, according to The Hollywood Reporter.