Today marks director Barry Jenkins’s (Moonlight) birthday, and he decided to celebrate it with a simple yet powerful message. Taking to Twitter, he posted another beautifully striking teaser for his upcoming Amazon Prime Original series The Underground Railroad via Deadline.
The Underground Railroad will stream on Amazon Prime Video with no release date as of yet. It’s based upon the 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning novel written by Coleson Whitehead. The story is an epic hero’s journey following Cora Randall, a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When she decides to escape and run for freedom via the Underground Railroad, it sets off a chain of events with danger looming at every corner.
Thuso Mbedu (Is’Thunzi) will star in the role of Cora, along with Chase D. Willon (The First Wives Club) as Homer and Joel Egerton (Red Sparrow) as Ridgeway.
The video Jenkins shared on Thursday is entitled “Speak upon the Ashes,” and paints fragmented portraits of people as they pose for the camera. Sunlight seeps down amongst the camera’s subjects while they glare into the lens. The video is accompanied by the haunting score composed by Nicholas Brittel (Moonlight).
Along with sharing the new teaser, Jenkins tweeted, “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.”
Read the whole tweet along with the clip “Speak upon the ashes” below:
Jenkins had previously released teaser for The Underground Railroad with a video entitled “Preamble” in October. In a similar fashion, Jenkins also shared a video on Twitter offering a first look at Cora.
See the original tweet including the video entitled “Randall. Cora Randall” below:
The series is executive produced by Jenkins and Whitehead with Jenkins directing all ten episodes. Also co-executive producing the series is a group of frequent Jenkins collaborators including Adele Romanski (Moonlight), Dede Gardner (Moonlgiht), Mark Ceryak (Never Rarely Sometimes Always), Sara Murphy (If Beale Street Could Talk), Jeremy Kleiner (12 Years a Slave), Sarah Esberg (Beautiful Boy), Richard Heus (The Man in the High Castle), and Jackie Hoyt (The Leftovers).