Ava DuVernay is an American director, screenwriter, film marketer, and film distributor. She is best known for ‘Selma’, which chronicles Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership in the struggle for voting rights. She is the first African-American woman to win the Best Director Prize at Sundance, the first female director to receive a Golden Globe nomination, and the first african-american female director to have a film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
DuVernay was born in 1972 in Long Beach, California and grew up in the Compton/Lynwood area of California. DuVernay’s father, Murray Maye is from Hayneville, Alabama and she would spend her summers there. Her time in Alabama, and her father’s experience in seeing the Selma to Montgomery marches as a small child would later influence her film making. DuVernay was gifted with an appreciation for the arts by her aunt, Denise, who would often pick her up after school and take her to the movies. The two would spend hours watching films and discussing books and art, building DuVernay’s knowledge and appreciation in these areas. One of her favourite films was West Side Story, which captivated her with “the colour and the brown people and the dancing and the music and the love story.”
DuVernay attended Saint Joseph High School, graduating in 1990. She then continued her education at University of California, Los Angeles where she double-majored in English and African-American studies, gaining a B.A. in 1995. After her graduation, and inspired by her love of film, she began working in film publicity for FOX, Savoy Pictures[ and other PR firms. After four years, at the age of 27, DuVernay formed her own agency, The DuVernay Agency where she continued to succeed, especially with projects relating to youth culture and people of colour. Her agency expanded, taking on marketing, distribution consultation and more. The DuVernay Agency provided strategy and execution for more than 120 film and television campaigns for many acclaimed directors including Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Michael Mann and Bill Condon. The last film her agency consulted on was The Help, after which she focused on her own film making while still making time to consult on others.
In 2004, DuVernay was on the set of the thriller Collateral, starring Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise when she struck by the thought that she could be telling her own stories about the streets of LA. Inspired, she started writing Middle of Nowhere but due to a lack of funding she had to set the project aside. DuVernay focused on releasing shorts, and in 2006 released Saturday Night Life which was followed by the documentaries This is the Life in 2008, which followed a group of South Central artists she knew and explored the history of LA’s Good Life Cafe’s arts movement. The film lead to BET hiring DuVernay for their first commissioned documentary on the history of women in hip‑hop. My Mic Sounds Nice: The Truth About Women in Hip Hop aired on BET in 2010 and its success encouraged DuVernay to make her first feature film.
In 2011, DuVernay’s feature film debut as director and screenwriter was I Will Follow was released. The film was inspired by DuVernay’s aunt Denise Sexton and was made in just15 days and funded by DuVernay herself. I Will Follow was an official selection of AFI Fest,Pan-African Film Festival, Urbanworld and Chicago International Film Festival. That same year, DuVernay co-founded the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement, a group dedicated to supporting the release and distribution of black indie movies. In 2012, she released her second feature film, Middle of Nowhere. The film played in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where DuVernay won the Best Director Award, making her the first African-American woman to ever win the prize. DuVernay also won the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award for the film. In the following year, DuVernay directed an episode of the hit drama Scandal and released a documentary for ESPN entitled Venus VS., following Venus Williams’ fight for equal pay for female tennis players.
In 2014, the DuVernay directed film Selma was released. Selma chronicles the historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery march led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, which her own father had witnessed. The film was hugely successful, earning almost unanimous critical praise and has been heralded as one of the year’s best films. The film was not without controversy, as many objected to its depiction of President Lyndon B. Johnson sending the FBI to investigate king and suggesting he was only a reluctant supporter of the man. DuVernay had re-written most of Paul Webb’s original script (but is uncredited for this contribution) to focus the story on King and the people of Selma. She stated that the film was not meant to be a documentary, as she is a storyteller, not a historian. Selma was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture and Original song, and many viewers and critics were outraged at the Academy’s decision to omit it from other categories. DuVernay made history once again for her work, becoming the first African-American woman to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director.
In 2013, DuVernay was invited to both the director’s and writer’s branches of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), becoming the second black woman, following Kasi Lemmons, to be invited to the director’s branch. That same year, 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. She donated all the money to AFFRM. In 2015, DuVernay was honored as part of Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards with the Dorothy Arzner Directors Award. In 2015, DuVernay’s AFFRM rebranded itself to become ARRAY, promising to focus on women filmmakers. In addition to her feature films, DuVernay has produced acclaimed fashion and beauty films for Fashion Fair and Prada. She is currently working on a number of upcoming projects, including a fictional account focusing on the social and environmental aspects of Hurricane Katrina and a drama series entitled Queen Sugar set to air on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
In April 2015, DuVernay was named as one of Mattel’s “Sheroes” of 2015, and a custom-made one-of-a-kind Barbie in her likeness was produced and auctioned to raise money for charity. In December 2015, due to high demand, a collectible version of the doll was produced with sales supporting the charities ColorofChange.org and Witness, which advocate for civil and human rights. The doll sold out within hours.