American - Director | August 24, 1972 -
I financed and made my own films from the start. My path has been autonomous and independent, so I don't have any horror stories about glass ceilings and expectations and tense studio meetings.
Ava DuVernay
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For female directors, there's a whole other set of things we have to think about, particularly when we are casting men, because there are some actors who have never been directed by a woman. Crew members, too.
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'Queen Sugar' is a drama about family. It's something that allows us to be ourselves and see the ways that we interact with our own families.
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The studios aren't lining up to make films about black protagonists, black people being autonomous and independent.
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I like silence. Aesthetically, I feel strangled by the fast cutting and a wall of sound. And I think showing black people thinking onscreen is radical.
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Art morphs with what's going on in the world. We say 'Ferguson'; we don't say 'Mike Brown.' Just like we say 'Selma,' not 'Jimmie Lee Jackson.' There is something startling about the people in a particular place, a city or a small town, rising up and taking to the streets.
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You see women struggling to keep it all together while a loved one is in jail. But we don't hear about them or their struggles in a way that resonates with others. Their stories are so compelling. It's as if they are in their own little world and no one else sees them.
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All black women aren't sassy, loud, difficult, or subservient. We are, in fact, very complex and very diverse, living very complex and diverse lives. That point cannot be made enough.
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To win Best Director at Sundance was beyond anything I could have imagined for myself. It's still an incredible feeling to know I won. But as happy as I am about winning, I also know many other women of color have directed amazing films over the years that were equally deserving and didn't win.
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My next project is 'Venus Vs,' which is a documentary that follows tennis star Venus Williams and her effort to get equal-award pay for women at Wimbledon. Most people don't realize that Venus fought for years to make sure women and men winners of that tennis championship received the same amount in award money.
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Art is something that grows and breathes and lives, and it shouldn't be predicated on the success of box office - but it is. But within that, you have to give people a chance to find their voice, to play, to continue to create.
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Oh, Diane Nash deserves her own film. Diane Nash is a freedom fighter who is still alive and kicking. She was one of the leaders of the desegregation of Nashville, basically. She was a student at Fisk University who was one of the founding members of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
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