Ava DuVernay's "14th" Sets December 4 Netflix Release

A decade after her Oscar-nominated documentary 13th examined mass incarceration, Ava DuVernay is returning to constitutional history with 14th, a follow-up documentary set to premiere globally on Netflix on December 4, following a theatrical release in select U.S. and U.K. theaters beginning November 27. Before that, the film will make its world premiere at the 64th New York Film Festival on October 9, where it has been selected as the festival's Closing Night film.

Where 13th was named for the amendment that abolished slavery, 14th turns to the amendment that established citizenship rights and equal protection under the law, examining the arguments over its meaning and application from its origins to the present day. Produced through DuVernay's ARRAY banner, the documentary brings together historians, lawyers, scholars, curators, and politicians including AOC, Anna Paulina Luna, Jeff Flake, Alex Padilla, Sherrilyn Ifill, and Stacey Abrams, among more than 50 interviews DuVernay conducted herself. DuVernay has summed up the thematic pivot from her earlier film succinctly: "If '13th' asked who gets caged, then '14th' asks who gets counted." The film's arrival is especially pointed given recent fights over birthright citizenship, positioning 14th as a direct engagement with one of the most contested questions in American law right now who actually gets to belong.