Ava DuVernay

Ava DuVernay
DuVernay in 2018
Born
Ava Marie DuVernay

(1972-08-24) August 24, 1972 (age 52)
Long Beach, California, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of California, Los Angeles (BA)
Occupations
  • Director
  • producer
  • screenwriter
  • film publicist

Ava Marie DuVernay (/ˌdjuːvərˈneɪ/;[1] born August 24, 1972) is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. She is a recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, two NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award, and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee for an Academy Award and Golden Globe. In 2011, she founded her independent distribution company ARRAY.

After making her directoral debut, I Will Follow (2010), DuVernay won the directing award in the U.S. dramatic competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for her second feature film Middle of Nowhere,[2] becoming the first black woman to win the award.[3]

For her work on Selma (2014), a biopic about Martin Luther King Jr., DuVernay became the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director; the film went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.[4][5] Her other film credits include the Academy Award-nominated Netflix documentary 13th (2016) and the Disney fantasy film A Wrinkle in Time (2018), the latter making her the first African-American woman to direct a film with a budget of $100 million. In 2023, she directed the biographical film Origin based on Isabel Wilkerson's book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020).

DuVernay's television credits include the OWN drama series Queen Sugar (2016) and two Netflix drama limited series: When They See Us (2019), based on the 1989 Central Park jogger case and Colin in Black & White (2021), based on the teenage years of NFL player Colin Kaepernick.

In 2017, DuVernay was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.[6] In 2020, she was elected to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences board of governors as part of the directors branch.[7][8]

  1. ^ Mekado, Murphy (January 22, 2015). "Anatomy of a Scene | 'Selma'". The New York Times. Retrieved June 28, 2020.
  2. ^ Demby, Gene (January 30, 2012). "Sundance 2012: Ava DuVernay Becomes First Black Woman To Win Best Director Prize For Middle Of Nowhere". The Huffington Post.
  3. ^ Farabee, Mindy (December 20, 2012). "Ava DuVernay no longer in 'Middle of Nowhere'". Los Angeles Times.
  4. ^ Ford, Rebecca (December 11, 2014). "Golden Globes: 'Selma's' Ava DuVernay Becomes First Black Woman to Receive Director Nomination". The Hollywood Reporter.
  5. ^ Suskind, Alex (December 17, 2014). "How Ava DuVernay struck a chord with Selma". The Guardian.
  6. ^ "The 100 Most Influential People in the World". Time. 2017. Retrieved September 23, 2020.
  7. ^ Thompson, Anne (June 10, 2020). "New Academy Board of Governors Includes Ava DuVernay, Whoopi Goldberg, and Wynn P. Thomas". IndieWire. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
  8. ^ Feinberg, Scott (June 10, 2020). "Ava DuVernay Among Six Elected to Film Academy Board for First Time". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved June 21, 2020.