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WORLD PREMIERE: Actor Nate Parker

NATE PARKER'S The Birth of a Nation is already a Sundance Film Festival smash hit.

Described as "electrifying," Parker’s epic drama about the famous 1831 slave rebellion was the subject of a fierce bidding war on Monday night (Jan 25), with The Weinstein Company, Netflix, and Sony all reportedly offering top dollar.

However Fox Searchlight emerged after an all-night bidding war yesterday morning (Jan 26) with a $17.5 million deal for world rights - the biggest sale in the festival's history.

The Birth of a Nation, which knowingly co-opts the title of the highly controversial 1915 D.W. Griffith blockbuster, is a long-gestating biopic about Nat Turner, the historic leader of one of the most infamous slave rebellions in American history.

The film, which premiered Monday night, has been met with resounding accolades and even, as some have reported, “Oscar buzz.”

The brutal and poignant story of Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion in Virginia was a "seven-year passion project" for Parker, who wrote, directed, produced and starred.

He said yesterday, in his first interview since capping his whirlwind past 24 hours, that the film was shot in just 27 days at a budget just under $10 million.

“I want everyone to be challenged — it’s kind of like a battle cry from a filmmaking standpoint,” Parker said.

“Because yes, we need to deal with pervasive racism in Hollywood, but also in society, so I wanted a film that people could watch and be affected — almost hold them hostage in the theatre, where they have to see this images, and they have to see the parallels and the themes that are echoing right now in 2016.

BIDDING WAR: Fox Searchlight scooped the film up for a record-breaking $17.5

The Red Tails star added: "And then they can’t unknow it, they can’t unsee what they saw, and when they leave they’ll have to ask themselves, ‘What is my role?’ and ‘Am I doing all I could be doing? Am I being passive? Complicit? And then I think that’s how we create change.”

For Parker, he knew something special was happening when he took the stage to introduce the film Monday night.

In a rare Sundance moment, the audience gave him a standing ovation before a single image had played onscreen.

"It was almost like confirmation: People are ready for this movement, even more so than they are for the film. They're with you in the spirit of what you wanted to do," Parker told The Hollywood Reporter.