Ava DuVernay
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“Changing the Industry Game”: Queen Sugar Showrunner and Directors Talk Career Advancement at IFP Week
Filmmaker Elisabeth Subrin (A Woman, A Part) sends this short dispatch from IFP Week’s Screen Forward Talks: Notes to the Future Sunday program — specifically, the afternoon panel, “Through the Generations: Queen Sugar: Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey’s Queen Sugar.” The panel featured IFP alums Kat Candler (Hellion), Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), DeMane Davis (Lift), Lauren Wolkstein (The Strange Ones). Beyond the brilliance of the series itself, Ava Duvernay’s production model for Queen Sugar, a cable series on the Oprah Winfrey Network, is visionary and proactive. By choosing to hire only women independent film directors who have never […]
by Elisabeth Subrin on Sep 19, 2018 -
Trailer Watch: Ava DuVernay’s 13th
Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th, will have its world premiere as the Opening Night selection of the 54th New York Film Festival. The first-ever nonfiction work to open the festival, 13th will debut on Netflix and open in a limited theatrical run on October 7. You can check out its first trailer above. The title of the film refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The film chronicles the history of racial inequality and examines how the U.S. has produced […]
by Paula Bernstein on Sep 26, 2016 -
Can She Pull It Off? (Or, How to Hire Women Directors)
When I started working in film in 1995, there weren’t many women in the business overall, and women directors were almost unheard of. Twenty years later, I’m still here, but, despite gains in a variety of other fields from pharmacy to law, women directors are not getting any more work than they did when I was starting out. During the last several months we have enjoyed what you might call a consciousness-raising moment in show business, with a variety of folks sounding the alarm all over social media about Hollywood’s sustained resistance to bringing in new faces. (For example, check […]
by Katy Chevigny on Feb 17, 2016 -
Filmmakers Launch #BlackoutBlackFriday Day of Activism, Events and Retail Boycott
In the wake of the decision not to prosecute Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown, Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler has joined with Selma director and AFFRM founder Ava DuVernay to launch Blackout for Human Rights, “a network committed to ending human rights violations at the hands of public servants.” The group, which includes a number of directors, actors and others, builds on this week’s nationwide protests with events and actions, including today’s #BlackoutBlackFriday. From the group’s Tumblr: About #BlackoutBlackFriday: We ask those who stand with Ferguson, victims of police brutality and us to refrain […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 28, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: Ava DuVernay’s Selma
You seldom see a female filmmaker making the quantum leap from a $200,000 Sundance title to a Brad Pitt-backed Christmastide blockbuster, so hats off to Ava DuVernay on the upcoming Selma. A retelling of the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, the film stars David Oyelowo (also of DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere) as Martin Luther King, Jr., with a substantial ensemble in Tom Wilkinson, Oprah Winfrey, Keith Stanfield, Tim Roth and Lorraine Toussaint, among others. Shot by the brilliant Bradford Young, Selma is set for a December 25 limited release and a national rollout on January 9, 2015.
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 7, 2014 -
Love on the Outside
Ava DuVernay won the Best Director prize at Sundance for her second dramatic feature, Middle of Nowhere, a heartfelt and complex tale of a woman discovering her own identity while fighting for the parole of her convict husband. A writer, director and also distributor, DuVernay is releasing the film through a partnership between her own African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement and Participant Media. Producer Nekisa Cooper learns more.
by Nekisa Cooper on Nov 1, 2012 -
TRAILER WATCH: “MIDDLE OF NOWHERE”
Ava DuVernay won the Best Director prize at Sundance for her second feature, the powerful, superbly acted Middle of Nowhere. The first trailer has just dropped; watch it below, and look for DuVernay’s interview with Spike Lee in our current print edition.
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 26, 2012 -
POST ‘DANCE EUPHORIA
I’m back and armed with memories of the moments my life got changed. Will you indulge me as I address the highlights? I’ll actually focus on one day, because during this day there was an odd series of highlights that scrambled my grey matter and re-made me into a whole – new – guy. January – twenty – seventh was an early morning because I was invited to sit on a Cinema Café panel moderated by John Nein, with fellow filmmakers Benh Zeitlin and Marialy Rivas. Ben made Beasts of the Southern Wild, which literally jumped inside my left ventricle […]
by Terence Nance on Feb 9, 2012 -
Four Questions with Middle of Nowhere Director Ava DuVernay
Over the last decade, Ava Duvernay has established herself as something of an indie renaissance woman. An entrepreneur, distribution and marketing expert, and key player in the African American filmmaking landscape, Duvernay expanded her resume again in 2010 with her directorial debut I Will Follow, an intimate portrait of grief. Middle of Nowhere, Duvernay’s followup, centers on a woman (Emayatzy Corinealdi) forced to cope with the recent incarceration of her husband. Filmmaker: Like I Will Follow, Middle of Nowhere tells a very small-scale, very intimate story. What was it about these characters and this story that inspired you? Duvernay: The […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jan 23, 2012 -
Middle of Nowhere | Writer/Director Ava DuVernay
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, January 20, 2:30 pm –Library Center Theatre, Park City] First film I ever loved was West Side Story. My aunt Denise forced me to watch it one rainy afternoon. I had to be about 9-years-old. I was spellbound. The dancing. The romance. The brown people. I grew up in Compton, right where the city limits hug Lynwood. And for as long as I can remember, my school, my block, was predominately Latino. I remember watching that film and it changing the way I saw my schoolmates and neighbors. Seriously, I recall feeling something very specific about the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 20, 2012
