The Black Student Association will show the movie 12 Years a Slave Thursday at 7 p.m. in Cullen Auditorium.

All students are invited to come free of charge to see the critically acclaimed film and participate in a talkback session after the movie.

The movie has a 134-minute run time with an hour-long talkback session. T’neise Ragland, president of BSA, believes it would be better if more students could come and stay for the talkback afterwards.

“We gave the talkback about an hour or so, but maybe it could be shorter or longer cause I would like everyone on campus to come out, not just the members, and for people to ask questions and be informed.”

J Sheppard, vice president of the BSA, said that multiple factors were added into the decision.

“We were looking for movies that were historically black that told a story but had some informational value as well,” Sheppard said.

Avia Gray, treasurer of BSA, said that Byron Martin of the Office of Multicultural Enrichment saw the movie and thought it would give a different view of black history to the student body.

“Byron saw it and he thought it would be a good idea to show a little more raw side of black history,” Gray said. “You hear about it in textbooks… but no one really gets to see it and he thought it would be a really good representation of what happened.”

Gray said she looks forward to the talkback after the movie, and the differences it will have compared to other forms of film and literature released on the topic.

“I’d like to see a more informative-type thing, I think, that is obviously lacking on a predominantly white campus,” Gray said. “In the movie itself, I just want to see how accurate it is to other films and other pieces of literature.”

The film has won multiple awards, most notably a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture in the drama category. The movie contains a star-studded cast with actors like Brad Pitt, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Paul Giamatti.