A gripping story analysing the importance of the characters who helped restore dignity to an abused population on the African continent reduced to a commercial commodity. A great film highlighting the importance of Christianity in shaping anti-slavery thought and movement.

There is a mutiny on the Amistad. This culminates in black slaves taking control of the ship. They continue their voyage and hope to find their way back to Africa. However, they choose the wrong course and when they reach the United States, they are trapped as runaway slaves.

A trial begins and a lawyer, a convinced abolitionist, takes up their case. The trial culminates in their victory, because the evidence clearly shows that this was an illegal slave trade and not the illegal transport of slaves from Cuba.

However, the slave lobby does not sleep and gets the whole case reopened before the US Supreme Court.

Interwoven through the story are the fates of Cinque, an African man, and his family, including the dire circumstances slaves faced at the time.

Parents Guide: A black woman in a short dress in one scene.More times a dress with exposed shoulders. Two scenes with men with exposed genitals and multiple scenes with men with exposed chests. Short shot of African women with exposed breasts. A couple of the more brutal scenes during the slave revolt on the ship, especially in the opening scene. 1x drowning scene. Hand snapping into prison bars. Finding the corpse of a man in prison. Slave hunt coupled with a violent beating. The shooting of a man and other deaths in several scenes. One scene with flogging. Drowning of several Africans in the sea.

Cast: Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, David Paymer, Pete Postlethwaite, Stellan Skarsgård, Razaaq Adoti, Anna Paquin, Tomas Milian, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Paul Guilfoyle

Crew: Steven Spielberg

USA, 1997

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