"This powerful documentary, which screened at the Venice Film Festival and New York Film Festival, is aiming for the Oscars next."
..."Another important NYFF doc was award-winning documentarian Nancy Buirski's The Rape of Recy Taylor, about the World War II-era gang rape of a young African-American mother who bravely took on a fight for justice that became a key event early in the Civil Rights movement."
..."Recy Taylor’s story ended in stalemate, but America, Alabama, and the Taylor family are better off for Buirski’s telling it so many decades later. The film opens our eyes not just to one wrong but the greater system of wrongs that made it possible—a system whose ramifications we still live with today."
..."The justice system failing women, and especially women of color, is not (to put it mildly) solely a historical concern, so there’s a particular urgency to this tough but essential documentary by Nancy Buirski (The Loving Story), about the assault, trial, and fallout of the 1944 rape of a 24-year-old African-American wife and mother in Abbeville, Alabama."
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“Upon thinking about it, I can not name a film more important in 2017. In the wake of the Charlottesville riots, the film mixes past outrage with a present day viewpoint. The film is so powerful and emotionally charged it will leave viewers wanting to leave the theater to go out and protest more than 70 years later.”
"The Rape of Recy Taylor in title alone, is powerful: forcing you to say her name, and acknowledge what was done that night in 1944.”
...“Though the titular crime happened in 1944, there’s a sense of urgency to Nancy Buirski‘s “The Rape of Recy Taylor.” Like last year’s “13th” and “I Am Not Your Negro,” this documentary centers on the past, but its pertinence to today’s culture is striking – and utterly devastating.”
“The tragedy of what happened to Taylor can cause the kind of tears that leave your face swollen and sore, but it’s all the more painful given the current events in America.”
...“Limpid, mysterious, and heavy with darkness, Nancy Buirski’s The Rape of Recy Taylor is a kind of true ghost story. The characters are all real, and the events described are painfully so. But so much of it floats in a twilight gulf between the reality of what happened and what should have happened that it cannot help but feel at least in part unreal.”
...“This is a movie that should be shown in every high school in America, not only because it graphically illustrates the ugly aspects of racism but also of sexism as well.”
“ We continue to live in a rape culture now; the real consequences of that culture are excellently documented here.”
“The archival and “race film” footage is fascinating. Feimster is an eloquent and intelligent speaker. The film is powerful and moving. Here you’ll find a very specific and damning account of racism.”
...“And using her story to help us focus on the wider issue about the abuse of black women’s bodies and their fight back over decades has resulted in a film that is by turns rage-inducing, heartbreakingly moving, absorbing and inspiring.”
..." 'The Rape of Recy Taylor' is the strongest documentary in the NYFF line-up, a stirring, infuriating marvel."
“Buirski's intense rhythm and knack for filling in vital missing pieces through respectful and electrifying invention make her work as interesting as her subjects.”
“Everything about "The Rape of Recy Taylor" aims to stay with you, to present the ugly history as something that cannot be scrubbed from the chambers of our memory. Recy Taylor is still here, the film reminds us, and so is the stain of these crimes, of hate and rape. We must want to remember what happened so that it will never happen again. “
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