DuVernay, Ava
1972- · Contribution: 2012-present
Filmmaker whose work centers on the African American experience and who broke a series of directing barriers: the first Black woman to win Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival, the first nominated for a Golden Globe for directing, the first to direct a Best Picture Oscar nominee, and the first to direct a live-action film with a budget over $100 million.
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Impact on the world
With 'Middle of Nowhere' (2012) she became the first African American woman to win the Best Director prize at the Sundance Film Festival; her civil-rights drama 'Selma' (2014) made her the first Black woman nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Director and the first to direct a film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Her documentary '13th' (2016) brought the first Oscar nomination for a Black woman in a feature directing category, and 'A Wrinkle in Time' (2018) made her the first Black woman to direct a live-action film budgeted over $100 million. In 2023 she became the first African American woman director to compete for the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in its century-long history, with 'Origin.'
Life & background
Born on August 24, 1972, in Long Beach, California, and raised in the Compton and Lynwood areas, Ava DuVernay spent childhood summers near Selma, Alabama, where her stepfather had witnessed the 1965 voting-rights marches, an experience that later shaped her filmmaking. She graduated from UCLA with degrees in English and African American studies and worked for years as a film publicist before directing her first project at age 32. After the documentary 'This Is the Life' (2008) and the feature 'I Will Follow' (2010), she won the Best Director prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for 'Middle of Nowhere,' the first African American woman to do so. Her breakthrough came with 'Selma' (2014), which earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination and made her the first Black woman nominated for a Golden Globe for directing, followed by the acclaimed Netflix documentary '13th' (2016) and the Emmy-winning miniseries 'When They See Us' (2019), about the wrongly convicted Central Park teenagers. With Disney's 'A Wrinkle in Time' (2018) she became the first Black woman to direct a live-action film with a nine-figure budget, and in 2010 she founded the distribution company now known as ARRAY, dedicated to films by women and people of color. She was later elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sources
- Britannica (Ava DuVernay); American Academy of Arts and Sciences; BlackPast.org; National Women's History Museum (womenshistory.org)
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