<P> The film was directed by Steve McQueen . The screenplay was written by John Ridley . Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Solomon Northup . Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Lupita Nyong'o, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt, and Alfre Woodard are all featured in supporting roles . Principal photography took place in New Orleans, Louisiana, from June 27 to August 13, 2012 . The locations used were four historic antebellum plantations: Felicity, Bocage, Destrehan, and Magnolia . Of the four, Magnolia is nearest to the actual plantation where Northup was held . </P> <P> 12 Years a Slave received widespread critical acclaim, and was named the best film of 2013 by several media outlets . It proved to be a box office success, earning over $187 million on a production budget of $22 million . The film won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Nyong'o, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Ridley . The Best Picture win made McQueen the first African British producer to ever receive the award and the first African British director of a Best Picture winner . The film was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture--Drama, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts recognized it with the Best Film and the Best Actor award for Ejiofor. 12 Years a Slave was later named the 44th greatest film since 2000 in a BBC poll of 177 critics . </P> <P> In 1841, Solomon Northup is a free African - American man working as a violinist, living with his wife and two children in Saratoga Springs, New York . Two white men, Brown and Hamilton, offer him short - term employment as a musician if he will travel with them to Washington, D.C. However, once they arrive they drug Northup and deliver him to a slave pen run by a man named Burch . Northup proclaims that he is a free man, only to be savagely beaten with, at first, a wooden paddle, then, a leather belt . Northup is later shipped to New Orleans along with other captive African Americans . He is told by the others that if he wants to survive in the South, he must adapt to being a slave and not tell anyone he is a free man . A slave trader named Freeman gives Northup the identity of "Platt", a runaway slave from Georgia, and sells him to plantation owner William Ford . Tension grows between Northup and a plantation overseer which ends with Northup savagely beating and whipping the overseer . To save Northup's life, Ford sells him to another slave owner named Edwin Epps . In the process, Northup attempts to explain that he is actually a free man, but Ford tells him he is too afraid and that he cannot help him now . </P> <P> At the plantation, Northup meets Patsey, a favored slave who can pick over 500 pounds of cotton a day, twice the usual quota, whom Epps regularly rapes and abuses . Some time later, cotton worms destroy Epps's cotton . Unable to work his fields, Epps leases his slaves to a neighboring plantation for the season . While there, Northup gains the favor of the plantation's owner, Judge Turner, who allows him to play the fiddle at a neighbor's wedding anniversary celebration and to keep his earnings . Northup is also raped by a female slave in the middle of the night . When Northup returns to Epps, he uses the money to pay a white field hand and former overseer, Armsby, to mail a letter to his friends in New York . Armsby agrees and accepts Northup's saved money, but immediately betrays him to Epps . In the middle of the night, a drunken Epps wakes Northup and questions him menacingly about the letter . Northup is narrowly able to convince Epps that Armsby is lying and Epps relents . Solomon then emotionally burns the letter he intended to give to Armsby . </P>

Where did 12 years a slave take place