The buzz of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, The Birth Of A Nation won both the Grand Jury prize and Audience Award for 2016. Starring, written and directed by young African-American filmmaker Nate Parker, the indie epic passion project looks to solve the #OscarSoWhite problem – at least for one year.

Based on a true story from the early 19th Century, audiences and critics have been describing it as the Braveheart of American slavery, complete with strong religious overtones.

The Birth Of A Nation opens in theaters on October 7, 2016.