12 Years a Slave won the Best Picture Oscar. British Director Steve McQueen became the first black briton to accept an Oscar as producer.

Based on true events. Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free black man in New York. Well to do, a violinist who is tricked, drugged and sold into slavery in Louisiana in 1842.

Solomon has to survive hardship and cruelty especially as he lived a relatively privileged life with his wife and young children.

He becomes a slave to Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) who shows some Christian kindness to his slaves. He even listens to Solomon's ideas. However his farm hand Tibeats (Paul Dano) is a cruel sadistic racist that Solomon beats up.

Ford ensures that Solomon is not lynched but sells him on to Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender) who is a cruel twisted man filled with liquor and religious scripture.

Epps also lusts after his black slave Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o) who he regularly rapes. Epps wife hates Patsey knowing her husband's fascination for her.

Solomon plans his escape. He can read and write and eventually meets a kindly abolitionist.

McQueen pulls no punches. This is not the alt right false view of slavery. This is brutal and degrading. Your fate is at the whim of your master's view at any time of the day. Even if your master is benevolent like Ford. You are still his property and you have his underlings who will show their sadism.

Ejiofor does well in showing his character's dignity. It takes him a while to realise that he was tricked by the people who invited him to dine with them.

Despite being made by a black filmmaker. It suffers from torture porn. It is something I have a distaste of in black dramas ever since I watched Roots as a kid back in the late 1970s.