Barry Jenkins released his third teaser for the upcoming Amazon limited series, The Underground Railroad. It was first shown Wednesday night at drive-in screenings for Steve McQueen’s upcoming Amazon anthology series, Small Axe.
He shared the teaser on his birthday on Thursday, writing, “Appreciate the birthday well-wishes, I’ve been more fortunate than anyone deserves. Feels like a moment to share a bit – in the words of Sojourner Truth, to “speak upon the ashes.” MUCH LOVE.”
The Underground Railroad is led by Thuso Mbedu, Chase W. Dillon and Aaron Pierre. The series originally landed at Amazon in March 2017 with a script-to-series commitment. Jenkins is re-teaming with his Moonlight producers (Brad Pitt’s) Plan B, and Adele Romanski, to adapt the Colson Whitehead novel, which chronicles a young slave’s adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.
Here’s the Amazon logline: The limited series chronicles young Cora’s (Mbedu) journey as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.
The novel’s official summary reads: Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its Black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space.
Watch the third teaser below:
Appreciate the birthday well-wishes, I’ve been more fortunate than anyone deserves.
Feels like a moment to share a bit – in the words of Sojourner Truth, to “speak upon the ashes.” MUCH LOVE ????https://t.co/YW6bImr446
— Barry Jenkins (@BarryJenkins) November 19, 2020
Photo: Getty