It all begins on the deck of a wooden ship rocking in the middle of the ocean. In 1839, the slave ship Amistad, which set sail off the coast of Cuba, became the scene of a rebellion in which the slaves broke the chains of their captors. As Steven Spielberg brings this dark historical truth to the big screen, he leaves the audience face-to-face with the cold walls of courtrooms and the tough negotiations behind the lawyers’ desks. The struggle for justice waged by the captives in their quest for freedom ignites a major trial that will shake the political balance of the era.