Ava DuVernay

Ava Marie DuVernay (/ˌdjuːvərˈneɪ/;[1] born August 24, 1972) is an American filmmaker, television producer and former film publicist. She is a recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, a NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee of an Academy Award and Golden Globe.

Ava DuVernay
DuVernay in 2018
Born
Ava Marie DuVernay

(1972-08-24) August 24, 1972
Long Beach, California, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of California, Los Angeles (BA)
OccupationFilmmaker, television producer, film publicist
Notable work
  • Selma
  • 13th
  • A Wrinkle in Time
  • When They See Us
WebsiteAvaDuVernay.com

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, and 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.

Her 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]

Early life and education

Ava Marie DuVernay was born on August 24, 1972, in Long Beach, California. She was raised by her mother, Darlene (née Sexton), an educator, and her stepfather, Murray Maye.[9] The surname of her biological father, Joseph Marcel DuVernay III, originates with Louisiana Creole ancestry.[10] She grew up in Lynwood, California. She has four siblings.

During her summer vacations, she would travel to the childhood home of her stepfather, which was not far from Selma, Alabama.[11] DuVernay said that these summers influenced the making of Selma, as her father had witnessed the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches.[12]

In 1990, DuVernay graduated from Saint Joseph High School in Lakewood.[13] At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), she was a double BA major in English literature and African-American studies. Ava is an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.[14][15][16][17]

Career

Despite the acclaim DuVernay has garnered in the film and television industries, she did not pick up a camera until she was 32.[18] DuVernay's first interest was in journalism, a choice influenced by an internship with CBS News. She was assigned to help cover the O.J. Simpson murder trial.[15] DuVernay became disillusioned with journalism, however, and decided to move into public relations, working as a junior publicist at 20th Century Fox, Savoy Pictures, and a few other PR agencies. She opened her own public relations firm, The DuVernay Agency, also known as DVAPR, in 1999.[19]

Through DVAPR she provided marketing and PR services to the entertainment and lifestyle industry, working on campaigns for movies and television shows, such as Lumumba, Spy Kids, Shrek 2, The Terminal, Collateral, and Dreamgirls.[14][15][17][20][21][22][23]

Other ventures launched by DuVernay include Urban Beauty Collective, a promotional network that began in 2003 and had more than 10,000 African-American beauty salons and barbershops in 16 U.S. cities, expanded to 20 in 2008. They were mailed a free monthly Access Hollywood-style promotion program called UBC-TV,[24][25] the African-American blog hub Urban Thought Collective in 2008, Urban Eye, a two-minute long weekday celebrity and entertainment news show distributed to radio stations,[26] and HelloBeautiful, a digital platform for millennial women of color.[27]

Film
DuVernay at the 2010 AFI Film Festival

In 2005, over the Christmas holiday, DuVernay decided to take $6,000 and make her first film, a short called Saturday Night Life.[17][28] Based on her mother's experiences,[17] the 12-minute film was about an uplifting trip by a struggling single mother (Melissa De Sousa) and her three kids to a local Los Angeles discount grocery store. The film toured the festival circuit and was broadcast on February 6, 2007, as part of Showtime's Black Filmmaker Showcase.

DuVernay next explored making documentaries, because they can be done on a smaller budget than fiction films, and she could learn the trade while doing so.[29] In 2007, she directed the short Compton in C Minor, for which she "challenged herself to capture Compton in only two hours and present whatever she found." The following year, she made her feature directorial debut with the alternative hip hop documentary This Is the Life, a history of LA's Good Life Cafe's arts movement, in which she participated as part of the duo Figures of Speech. This is the Life won audience awards at the ReelWorld Film Festival in Toronto, the Los Angeles Pan-African Film Festival, the Hollywood Black Film Festival, and the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival in Seattle.[30]

I Will Follow

In 2011, DuVernay's first narrative feature film, I Will Follow, a drama starring Salli Richardson-Whitfield, was released theatrically. DuVernay's aunt Denise Sexton was the inspiration for the film. In an interview, DuVernay talked about how her real life experiences differed from the film: "I was a caregiver for my aunt, Denise Sexton, in the last year and a half of her life. She was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. She was a fighter and was active in her treatment to the end, which was different than the character in the film who wants to fight in a different way."[30] The film cost DuVernay $50,000 and was made in 14 days.[21] Roger Ebert called it "one of the best films I've seen about coming to terms with the death of a loved one."[31][32] I Will Follow was an official selection of AFI Fest, Pan-African Film Festival, Urbanworld and Chicago International Film Festival.

It wasn't until after I Will Follow that DuVernay fully left her job in publicity. DuVernay stated: "I knew that as a Black woman in this industry, I wouldn't have people knocking down my door to give me money for my projects, so I was happy to make them on the side while working my day job."[18]

Middle of Nowhere

In the summer of 2011, DuVernay began production on her second narrative feature film, Middle of Nowhere, from a script she had written in 2003 but was unable to finance.[28] The film drew from her own experiences growing up in Compton and Inglewood.[33] The story focuses on the wife of an incarcerated man who is serving a 10-year sentence. She drops out of medical school in order to have more time and emotional energy to give to her incarcerated spouse. The film explores how the families of the incarcerated are also victims of the system and shows how commonly this burden of incarceration falls upon women of color. In an interview with the LA Times, DuVernay touched on her inspiration for the film, "The idea of looking at the victims of incarceration – the mothers, sisters and daughters -- really came out of knowing women who were going through it."[33]

The film had its world premiere on January 20 at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, where it played in U.S. dramatic competition.[34] It garnered the U.S. Directing Award: Dramatic for DuVernay. She was the first African-American woman to win the prize. DuVernay also won the 2012 Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award for her work on the film.[35]

DuVernay was commissioned by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture to create a film about African-American history. Her August 28: A Day in the Life of a People explores six historical events that happened on the same date, August 28, in different years. It debuted at the museum's opening on September 24, 2016. The 22-minute film stars Lupita Nyong'o, Don Cheadle, Regina King, David Oyelowo, Angela Bassett, Michael Ealy, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, André Holland and Glynn Turman. Events depicted include William IV's royal assent to the UK Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, the 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi, the release of Motown's first number-one song, "Please Mr. Postman" by The Marvellettes, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 I Have a Dream speech, the landfall of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the night Senator Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.[36]

Michael T. Martin says, "DuVernay is among the vanguard of a new generation of Black filmmakers who are the busily undeterred catalyst for what may very well be a Black film renaissance in the making."[37] He further speaks of DuVernay's mission and "call to action" which constitutes a strategy "to further and foster the Black cinematic image in an organized and consistent way, and to not have to defer and ask permission to traffic our films: to be self-determining."[37]

The DuVernay test is the racial equivalent of the Bechdel test (for women in movies), as first suggested by The Guardian writers Nadia and Leila Latif[38] and then by The New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis in January 2016, asking whether "blacks and other minorities have fully realized lives rather than serve as scenery in white stories."[39] It aims to point out the lack of people of color in Hollywood movies, through a measure of their importance to a particular movie or the lack of a gratuitous link to white actors.[40]

Selma
Main article: Selma (film)

DuVernay directed Selma, a $20 million budget dramatic film, which is relatively low for a film of this caliber,[30] about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President Lyndon B. Johnson, and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights.[41] The movie, produced by Plan B Entertainment, was released on December 25, 2014, to critical acclaim.[42] DuVernay in an interview at Indiana University stated that Selma would be "the first major feature film in theaters that has anything to do with King's essential character"[30] making it a historical landmark in the history of biopics.

She made uncredited re-writes of most of the original screenplay by Paul Webb in order to emphasize King and the people of Selma as central figures.[43][44] In an October 2020 interview on The Carlos Watson Show, DuVernay claimed that she, not Webb, was the principal writer, saying that the biggest mistake of her career was allowing Paul Webb "to take credit for writing Selma when I wrote it.[45] In response to criticism by some historians and media sources who accused her of irresponsibly rewriting history to portray her own agenda, DuVernay said that the film is "not a documentary. I'm not a historian. I'm a storyteller".[46]

The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Song, but not Best Director, at the 2014 Academy Awards. The lack of diversity among the Oscar nominations for 2014 was the subject of much press,[47] especially on Twitter.[48] This film was the only one directed by a person of color that was nominated for the 87th Academy Awards. The award for Best Original Song went to "Glory" from Selma.[49][50] DuVernay said that she had not expected to be nominated as director, so the omission did not really bother her, but she was disappointed that actor David Oyelowo, who portrayed King, was not nominated as Best Actor. She said that the obstacles to people of color being represented in the Academy Awards were systemic.[48]

After Selma, DuVernay was approached by executives to direct Marvel's first film about a superhero of color, Black Panther, but she passed. In an interview with Essence DuVernay provided insight on why she passed on the project: "I think I'll just say we had different ideas about what the story would be. Marvel has a certain way of doing things and I think they're fantastic and a lot of people love what they do. I loved that they reached out to me."[51] She also expressed her support for the project moving forward, "I love the character of Black Panther, the nation of Wakanda and all that that could be visually. I wish them well and will be first in line to see it."[51]

Duvernay with her Peabody Award for 13th at the 76th annual ceremony in 2017

13th

In July 2016, the New York Film Festival made the surprise announcement that 13th, a documentary directed by DuVernay, would open the festival. Until the announcement no mention of the film had been made by either DuVernay or Netflix, the film's distributor.[52] Centered on race in the United States criminal justice system, the film is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed slavery (except as punishment for a crime). DuVernay's documentary opens with the statement that 25 percent of the people in the world who are incarcerated are incarcerated in the U.S., and argues that slavery has been effectively perpetuated in the U.S. through disproportionate mass incarceration of people of color. The film features several prominent activists, politicians, and public figures, such as Bryan Stevenson, Angela Davis, Van Jones, Newt Gingrich, Cory Booker, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Michelle Alexander, and others, who discuss such issues as convict leasing, the war on drugs, and disproportionate arrests, convictions and sentencing of minorities.[53] It was also the first critically acclaimed documentary to highlight the tragic story of Kalief Browder.

It was released on October 7, 2016, on Netflix.[54] 13th garnered acclaim from film critics and has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 94 reviews. The critical consensus says: "13th strikes at the heart of America's tangled racial history, offering observations as incendiary as they are calmly controlled."[55] In a review from Awards Circuit, Angela Davis said "13th is probably the most important movie you'll ever see."[56] In 2017, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Oscars;[57] DuVernay became the first Black woman to be nominated by the academy as a director in a feature category.[58] The film also won a Peabody Award in 2017[59] and a Columbia Journalism School duPont Award in 2018.[60]

A Wrinkle in Time

In 2010, it was announced that Disney carried the film rights to Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 novel A Wrinkle in Time[61] which follows a young girl traveling through space and time. Following the success of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, Disney announced the hiring of Jeff Stockwell to write the screenplay for Cary Granat and his new Bedrock Studios. Cary Granat had previously worked with Disney on the Chronicles of Narnia and Bridge to Terabithia films.[62] On August 5, 2014, Jennifer Lee was announced as the screenwriter, taking over from Stockwell, who had written the first draft.[63][64] On February 8, 2016, it was reported that DuVernay had been offered to direct the film, and she was confirmed as director later that same month.[65]

A Wrinkle in Time began filming in November 2016. DuVernay is the first African-American woman to direct a live-action film with a budget of over $100 million, and the second woman to do so after Patty Jenkins (who directed Wonder Woman).[66]

The film was released in March 2018 and brought in $33 million in its opening weekend, second at the box office behind Black Panther.[67] Following Disney's Q2 earnings report in May 2018, Yahoo! Finance deduced the film would lose the studio anywhere from $86–186 million.[68] Nonetheless, A Wrinkle in Time still made the list for the top 100 grossing movies of 2018,[69] making Ava DuVernay one of four female directors that made the list that year.[70]

Upon release, the film received mixed reviews, with critics "taking issue with the film's heavy use of CGI and numerous plot holes" while "celebrating its message of female empowerment and diversity."[71]

Television

In 2010, DuVernay directed three TV documentaries. The first, two-hour concert film TV One Night Only: Live from the Essence Music Festival, was a mix of live performances and behind-the-scenes vignettes. It aired August 28, 2010 on TV One and showcases the U.S.'s largest annual African-American entertainment gathering, the Essence Music Festival. In 2010 it was held July 2–4 in New Orleans.[72] Two days later, BET premiered its first original music documentary, My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women and Hip Hop, a 41-minute long history of female hip hop artists.[73]

On Thanksgiving 2010, TV One showed DuVernay's 44-minute documentary special Essence Presents: Faith Through the Storm, about two Black sisters who reclaimed their lives after personal devastation during Hurricane Katrina. "It was done for a client, for Essence. They wanted to talk about how faith helped them through, that was very important to them. So it is interspersed with gospel music, images of Katrina, their home and family."[74]

ESPN commissioned DuVernay to produce and direct Venus Vs., a documentary on Venus Williams's fight for equal prize money. This was to be included in their film series Nine for IX, which aired on July 2, 2013.[75]

DuVernay also directed the John Legend episode of the performance-and-interview series HelloBeautiful Interludes Live, which was shown September 14, 2013 on TV One as the series' broadcast premiere.[27]

She also directed the eighth episode of the third season of the political thriller television series Scandal. The episode, titled "Vermont is for Lovers, Too", premiered on November 21, 2013, on ABC.[76]

In 2015, DuVernay executive produced and directed the CBS civil rights crime drama pilot For Justice, starring Anika Noni Rose.[77] It was not picked up for distribution.[51]

That same year, DuVernay announced she would be creating and executive producing the drama series Queen Sugar, based on Natalie Baszile's novel.[78][79]

Queen Sugar premiered September 6, 2016 on Oprah Winfrey Network to critical acclaim.[80] DuVernay wrote four episodes and directed two. On August 1, 2016, the series was renewed for a second season ahead of its television premiere; it aired in a two-night premiere on June 20 and June 21, 2017.[81][82] The series was renewed for a third season on July 26, 2017.[83] In August 2018, OWN renewed the series for a fourth season, which premiered on June 12, 2019.[84][85]

On July 6, 2017, it was announced that Netflix had given the production When They See Us a series order consisting of four episodes. The series was created by DuVernay, who served as executive producer, co-writer, and director. Other executive producers credited, include Jeff Skoll, Jonathan King, Oprah Winfrey, Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh. Production companies involved with the series consisted of Participant Media, Harpo Films, and Tribeca Productions.[86] The series premiered on Netflix on May 31, 2019. Upon its release, the miniseries received universal acclaim.[87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95]

On June 25, 2019, Netflix announced that the miniseries had been streamed by over 23 million viewers within its first month of release.[96] It received a record number of 16 nominations for Emmy Awards for writing, directing, and acting for stars and supporting actors.

Advertising and music videos

In 2013, DuVernay partnered with Miu Miu as part of their Women's Tales film series.[97] Her short film The Door starred actress Gabrielle Union and reunited DuVernay with her Middle of Nowhere star Emayatzy Corinealdi. The film premiered online in February 2013[98] and was presented at the Venice Days sidebar of the 70th Venice International Film Festival in August.[99]

Also in August 2013, DuVernay released, through Vimeo,[100] a second branded short film entitled Say Yes.[101] The film was sponsored by cosmetic brand Fashion Fair and starred Kali Hawk and Lance Gross with Julie Dash, Victoria Mahoney, Lorraine Toussaint and Issa Rae appearing as extras.

In 2015, Apple Music and their ad agency Translation hired DuVernay to helm a series of three commercials starring Mary J. Blige, Taraji P. Henson and Kerry Washington. The first ad, Chapter 1, premiered during Fox's Emmy broadcast on September 20, 2015.[102] Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 debuted in November 2015 and February 2016, respectively.[103]

Her music video for the Jay-Z ft. Beyoncé song "Family Feud" premiered December 29, 2017 on Tidal.[104]

Film distribution and production

In 2010 DuVernay founded African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement (AFFRM), her own company to distribute films made by or focusing on Black people. DuVernay refers to AFFRM as "not so much a business, but a call to action."[105] Although she sees building strong business foundations for films is a priority, DuVernay has said that she stresses that the driving force of the organization is activism.[37] In 2015 the company rebranded itself under the name ARRAY, promising a new focus on women filmmakers as well.

DuVernay also owns Forward Movement, a film and television production company.[37]

Future projects

In 2013, she announced development on a narrative feature film entitled Part of the Sky and set in Compton.[106]

In 2015, it was announced that DuVernay would be writing, producing, and directing a fictional account which will focus on the "social and environmental" aspects of Hurricane Katrina while including a love story and a murder mystery.[107] David Oyelowo was said to be part of the project.[108]

In 2018, it was announced that DuVernay would be directing a New Gods film for the DC Extended Universe.[109] On May 29, 2019, DuVernay announced that she and Tom King would co-write the film.[110] The movie was no longer moving forward by April 2021.[111]

On October 29, 2018, it was announced that DuVernay would be working with the estate of Prince to direct a biopic covering his life for Netflix.[112] However, in August 2019, DuVernay quit as director due to "creative differences."[113]

On June 29, 2020, Netflix announced a six-episode series, created by Ava DuVernay and Colin Kaepernick, titled Colin in Black & White, centering on Kaepernick's youth and various events in his life that has led him to be the activist he is today.[114]

On February 11, 2020, news reports speculated about Ava DuVernay possibly co-producing and directing a Nipsey Hussle documentary for Netflix.[115]

In October 2020, her next film, Caste, an adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson's book, was officially announced for Netflix.[116]

Other work

In September 2013, DuVernay started a podcast series called The Call-In,[117] a series of phone conversations recorded by AFFRM of Black filmmakers of feature narrative and documentary work. DuVernay talks about her goals with The Call-In: "For people of color and women filmmakers, so often the questions we get asked are about being a woman or a person of color. So The Call-In was a space where we could just talk about craft."[118]

On October 27, 2013, DuVernay gave one of the Executive Keynote addresses for Film Independent, a non-profit organization that produces the Film Independent Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, at their 2013 Film Independent Form, a three-day event. She was one of two keynote speakers along with the chief executive officer of Netflix, Ted Sarandos.[119]

DuVernay, in a keynote address[120] at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival,[121][122] shared that she was the seventh person asked to direct Selma[123] and described her experience at the 2015 Oscars, while being an honor to attend, was just "a room in L.A."[124]

In February 2018 it was announced that DuVernay, along with producer Dan Lin and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, had launched the Evolve Entertainment Fund. The fund's mission is to promote inclusion and provide an opportunity for under-served communities to pursue a dream in the entertainment industry.[125]

Since May 2019, DuVernay has cohosted The Essentials, a weekly film series on Turner Classic Movies, with Ben Mankiewicz. DuVernay has appeared in wraparounds each Saturday night on the channel, discussing a wide range of films, including Marty, Ashes and Embers, Harlan County, USA and La Pointe Courte.[126]

Style and themes

DuVernay has two primary areas of interest: the first, exploring the intricacies of the Black American family, particularly "Black women's agency and subjectivity"[127] within the family and within a racist, patriarchal society. The second, is exploring the injustices that have affected, and have continued to affect, Black families and communities throughout history.

A lot of her filmography works within both of these areas of interest simultaneously. For example, Selma, a film about an important historical march and a film about Martin Luther King Jr., makes a huge effort to center and explore the important female activists that played a role in the event: "Selma does afford viewers with a variegated window into the lives of a few of the Black women that participated...Each woman is shown within the film to propel the Selma campaign--sometimes in the background, other times in the foreground, yet always in practically indispensable ways."[128] DuVernay has made it a focus of her activist filmmaking to center Black women in her work.

One of the social issues that DuVernay repeatedly returns to in her work is mass incarceration and the effects of incarceration on African American communities. This is the main topic of her Netflix documentary, 13th, which finds the roots of mass incarceration in the legal end of slavery. The film moves chronologically through history, keeping "a running total of the rapidly rising incarceration numbers since the 1970s; it works to contextualize these rising digits with a grand narrative that weaves together the racist, political, and financial motivations that paved the nation's way to mass incarceration."[129] DuVernay's television work addresses this as well: When They See Us depicts the ways in which the U.S. justice system targets Black people and other people of color, and in her show Queen Sugar one of the primary characters "is a convicted felon whose prison past makes it difficult for him to find a job and puts an ongoing strain on his relationship with his family."[130] This is an issue that DuVernay returns to again and again in her work.

Middle of Nowhere, encapsulates both of DuVernay's areas of interest: it puts a Black woman at the center of its narrative and depicts the ways in which incarceration affects her life and the life of her family. This fictional story shows the ways in which incarceration infiltrates the lives of even those who are not in prison through close association with someone who is incarcerated. This issue is particularly relevant to Black women as a vast majority of America's prisoners are Black and male: "burdens of carceral care fall most heavily on those intimately tied to the incarcerated as partners, spouses, parents, and children--demographics that are often marginalized."[131]

The cinematography and staging of the film emphasizes the protagonist, Ruby's, own entrapment via association to incarceration. Ruby puts her life on hold to provide emotional, legal, and financial support for her incarcerated husband, Derek. In Marquita Smith's analysis of the film, she explains that "carceral logic dictates that those who desire to maintain contact with incarcerated spouses...must endure an often invisible form of punishment...which criminalizes caring for the incarcerated."[131] When Ruby visits Derek, the camera takes special notice of the ways in which her own freedoms and bodily autonomy are restricted within the prison: "the camera follows the various examination acts, lingering on Ruby's body parts as they are inspected."[131] Lastly, there is a visual parallel drawn between the women who are visiting and the inmates. The women are often shown in lines and shot from behind fences and bars. They are herded into the visitation room in a way that parallels the male prisoners. DuVernay frames Ruby in a larger context of incarceration and its peripheral effects by showing her among a community of women whose situations parallel Ruby's. We see Ruby riding the bus to the prison with many other women, most of whom are Black, waiting in line with these women, and eventually being shuffled into the meeting area with these women. In the scene where Ruby visits Derek on their anniversary after hearing that he is up for parole, the camera pans over many other couples who sit in the visiting room with them- "by panning to show the various families in the visitation room before focusing on the protagonist, the film enables viewers to see beyond Ruby's individual happiness and recognize the importance of intimacy for the collective."[131]

Filmography

Film
Year Title Director Writer Producer Ref.
2010 I Will Follow Yes Yes Yes [132]
2012 Middle of Nowhere Yes Yes Yes [133]
2014 Selma Yes No No [134]
2018 A Wrinkle in Time Yes No No [135]

Executive producer

  • The White Tiger[136] (2021)

Short films

Year Title Director Writer Producer Ref.
2006 Saturday Night Life Yes Yes No
2013 The Door Yes Yes Yes
Say Yes Yes Yes No [137]

Documentary films
Year Title Director Writer Producer Notes
2007 Compton in C Minor Yes No Yes Short
2008 This is the Life Yes Yes Yes
2016 August 28: A Day in the Life of a People Yes Yes Yes Short
13th Yes Yes Yes

Television
Year Title Director Writer Executive
Producer		 Creator Notes
2013 Scandal Yes No No No Episode "Vermont is for Lovers, Too"
2015 For Justice Yes No Yes No Unaired TV pilot
2016–present Queen Sugar Yes Yes Yes Yes Writer (4 episodes), Director (2 episodes)
2019 When They See Us Yes Yes Yes Yes Director (4 episodes)
The Red Line No No Yes No
2020–present Cherish the Day No Yes Yes Yes
2021 Colin in Black & White Yes Yes Yes Yes Episode "Cornrows"
Home Sweet Home No No Yes Yes
2022 Naomi No Yes Yes Yes
DMZ Yes No Yes No Episode "Good Luck"

Documentary series

Year Title Director Writer Producer
2010 TV One Night Only: Live from the Essence Music Festival Yes Yes No
My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women and Hip Hop Yes No executive
Essence Presents: Faith Through the Storm Yes Yes Yes
2013 Venus Vs. Yes Yes No
HelloBeautiful Interludes Live: John Legend Yes No No

Commercials
Year Title Director Writer Producer Notes
2015–2016 Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 Yes No No Apple Music

Music video
Year Title Director Writer Producer Ref.
2017 "Family Feud," Jay-Z ft. Beyoncé Yes Yes Yes [104]

Awards, nominations, honors
  • In 2012, Variety featured DuVernay in its Women's Impact Report.
  • In June 2013, she was invited to both the director's and writer's branches of AMPAS.[138] DuVernay was only the second Black woman, following Kasi Lemmons, to be invited to the director's branch.
  • DuVernay became the inaugural recipient of the Tribeca Film Institute's Heineken Affinity Award, receiving a $20,000 prize and industry support for future projects. DuVernay donated all the money to AFFRM, the Black arthouse film collective she founded.[139]
  • In June 2015, Duvernay was honored as part of Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards with the Dorothy Arzner Directors Award.[140]
  • In April 2015 DuVernay was chosen as one of Mattel's "Sheros" of 2015. A custom-made one-of-a-kind Barbie in DuVernay's likeness was produced. The doll was auctioned off with the proceeds given to charity.[141] Due to high demand, a collectible version of the doll was produced and sold in December of that year.[142]
  • In 2016, DuVernay was named to Oprah Winfrey's SuperSoul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders[143]
  • In 2017, DuVernay became the first Black woman nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, for her film 13th.[144][145]
  • In 2017, DuVernay was the recipient of Smithsonian Magazine's American Ingenuity Award for Visual Arts.[146]
  • In 2018, DuVernay won Entertainer of the Year at the 49th NAACP Image Awards for her work in 2017.[147]
  • PETA declared DuVernay and actor Benedict Cumberbatch to be the Most Beautiful Vegan Celebs of 2018.[148]
  • In 2020, DuVernay was awarded the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.[149]
  • In 2021, DuVernay was given the Award for Cinematic Production of the Royal Photographic Society


Year Award Category Work Result
2011 African-American Film Critics Best Screenplay I Will Follow Won
2012 Black Reel Awards Best Screenplay Nominated
Best Director Nominated
NAACP Image Awards Outstanding Independent Motion Picture Nominated
Sundance Film Festival Directing Award Middle of Nowhere Won
Grand Jury Prize Nominated
Film Independent Spirit Awards Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award Won
Humanitas Prize Sundance Film Nominated
African-American Film Critics Best Independent Film Won
Best Screenplay Won
Best Picture Nominated
Alliance of Women Film Journalists Best Woman Screenwriter Nominated
Women Film Critics Circle Josephine Baker Award Won
2013 Black Reel Awards Best Director Won
Best Screenplay Won
Best Film Nominated
Gotham Awards Best Feature Nominated
2014 Online Film Critics Society Award Best Director Selma Nominated
Black Film Critics Circle Best Director Won[150]
Central Ohio Film Critics Association Best Director Won
Breakthrough Film Artist Won
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award Best Director Nominated
Georgia Film Critics Association Best Director Nominated
Breakthrough Award Nominated
Golden Globe Award Best Director Nominated
Alliance of Women Film Journalists Best Director Nominated
Best Woman Director Won
Female Icon of the Year Won
Critics' Choice Movie Awards Best Director Nominated
Satellite Awards Best Director Nominated
Film Independent Spirit Awards Best Director Nominated
African-American Film Critics Association Best Director Won
Black Reel Awards Black Reel Award for Best Director Won
NAACP Image Award Outstanding Director Nominated
Online Film Critics Society Best Director Nominated
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards Best Director Nominated
2016 Grammy Awards Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media Nominated
Alliance of Women Film Journalists Best Woman Director 13th Won
Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Film Industry Won
Black Reel Awards Best Film Nominated
Best Feature Documentary Won
Critics' Choice Documentary Awards Best Director (TV/Streaming) Won
Women Film Critics Circle Best Woman Storyteller (Screenwriting Award) Won
Courage in Filmmaking Won
2017 Academy Award Best Documentary Feature Nominated
Primetime Emmy Award Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special Won
Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming Nominated
Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming Won
2018 BET Awards Video Director of the Year "Family Feud" Won[151]
2019 TCA Awards Program of the Year When They See Us Nominated
Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials Nominated
Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Limited Series Nominated
Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special Nominated
Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special Nominated
2020 Directors Guild of America Award Outstanding Directing – Miniseries or TV Film Nominated
Producers Guild of America Award Best Limited Series Television Nominated

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Further reading
  • Martin, Michael T. "Conversations with Ava DuVernay—'A Call to Action': Organizing Principles of an Activist Cinematic Practice." Black Camera 6, no. 1 (2014): 57–91. doi:10.2979/blackcamera.6.1.57.
  • Smith, Marquita R. ""Don't Be a Martyr": Kinship, Intimacy, and Carceral Care in Ava DuVernay's Middle of Nowhere", The Black Scholar, 48:1, 6-19, doi:10.1080/00064246.2018.1402252.
  • Butler, Bethonie. Ava DuVernay's Netflix Film '13th' Reveals how Mass Incarceration is an Extension of Slavery: Mass Incarceration has Long a Focus of the Acclaimed Director. Washington: WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post, 2016. ProQuest 1826393634.
  • Holmes, David G. "Close-Up: Ava DuVernay's Selma (2014): Seen and Heard: Negotiating the Black Female Ethos in Selma." Black Camera 10, no. 2 (Spring, 2019): 184–194. doi:10.2979/blackcamera.10.2.14. ProQuest 2444521388
  • Aseltine, Elyshia. "The Perniciousness of Prisons: Documenting the Problems of Mass Incarceration." American Anthropologist, Vol. 120, Issue 3, 2018. doi:10.1111/aman.13089
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