A movie on the life of William Wilberforce is set to be released early next year:
Like Martin Luther and Nate Saint before him, real-life hero of the Christian faith William Wilberforce will be making his big-screen debut next year, with a new historical drama called Amazing Grace. Directed by Michael Apted, the film will receive a U.S. distribution from Samuel Goldwyn Films and Roadside Attractions.
The Walden Media movie-set to be released on February 23, the 200th anniversary of Britain's abolition of the slave trade-stars Ioan Gruffudd (Fantastic Four) as Wilberforce, an outspoken Christian and political activist who played a large role in bringing about the slave trade's end. Albert Finney, Romola Garai, Rufus Sewell, and Michael Gambon also star.
The distribution companies plan to market the film to a wide variety of audiences-arthouse crowds, human rights activists, and also religious groups. Roadside's Howard Cohen notes that "Wilberforce is a hero to many Christians because he combined political actions and his belief in God." Cinematical reports that there may be plans in the works for Walden Media to join in the film's marketing campaign.
Wilberforce is a man with whose life too few people are familiar.
He devoted his life to the cause of abolishing Britain's role in the institution of slavery almost from the time he converted to Christianity in 1784 until his death in 1833.
As a member of the British parliament he gave his first speech against slavery in 1789 and continued the fight for abolition throughout his life, often against massive and vicious opposition. In 1807, he achieved his first victory when it was made illegal for a British subject to transport slaves, but slavery itself was still legal throughout the Empire, and British slavers did a brisk, if illegal, business in slave trafficking. Sea captains were fined 100 pounds for every slave found aboard their vessels, so, to avoid the fines, the slave ships' crews, when they saw a naval patrol boat approach, would throw as many slaves overboard as they could. This practice outraged enough people that eventually it was recognized that slavery had to be outlawed altogether.
Wilberforce himself felt that slaves couldn't simply be emancipated only to be left to fend for themselves uneducated and unskilled. Nevertheless, the forces he had set in motion in 1789 eventually proved ineluctable, and one month after his death in 1833 slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire.
William Wilberforce is a genuine hero in the fight for human rights, and he deserves to have a quality film made about his life. I hope the one coming out in February does him justice.
