Netflix releases trailer for Ava DuVernay's prison documentary '13th'

BEVERLY HILLS , Calif., Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Netflix has released a 2-minute trailer for 13th, a documentary directed and produced by Selma filmmaker Ava DuVernay.

Set to premiere at the New York Film Festival on Friday, the film "explores how mass incarceration evolved to its current epic proportions and what the ramifications are for communities of color across the country," a press release said.

It will debut on the streaming service Oct. 7.

An official synopsis explains the title "refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads, 'Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States...'

"The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. With a potent mixture of archival footage and testimony from a dazzling array of activists, politicians, historians, and formerly incarcerated women and men, DuVernay creates a work of grand historical synthesis."