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Ava DuVernay

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Ava DuVernay
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: August 24
Film Director
Film Producer
Filmmaker
Screenwriter
Showrunner
Television Producer
Writer
Long Beach
California
Ava Marie DuVernay
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More quotes by Ava DuVernay

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[ Hollywood] is a patriarchy, headed by men and built for men.
Ava DuVernay
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To pretend like Hollywood is anything other than that is disingenuous. #OscarsSoWhite is trendy, but for women filmmakers and filmmakers of color, it's not a trend. This is our reality, and it's important that we do something to change it.
Ava DuVernay
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I didn't start out thinking that I could ever make films. I started out being a film lover, loving films, and wanting to have a job that put me close to them and close to filmmakers and close to film sets.
Ava DuVernay
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It was easy for me to show the films to the studio and the network and say, This is who I'm hiring.
Ava DuVernay
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Working full-time as a filmmaker has been a dream come true.
Ava DuVernay
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We have to find new ways to work without permission, new ways to turn corners and go through doors that are closed off to us to create our own audiences and our own material independently.
Ava DuVernay
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I really admire Werner Herzog and Spike Lee. They're amazing documentarians. If you took away all the narratives, they'd just be amazing documentarians.
Ava DuVernay
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I think when we get to a place that this is not the story, that everyone's story is a part of the story, then we can say this has changed. Until then, these are steps to change if they're consistent.
Ava DuVernay
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Figure out what you need to do to be the heroine of your own story.
Ava DuVernay
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I thing for female filmmakers a big issue is making their second and third films. You see the statistics, and the dropoff on the second and third [films] , are dire.
Ava DuVernay
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These are dark times for a lot of people who believe differently than our incoming administration [of Donald Trump], but there's also joy there, and there's also something in unifying around the things that we do believe in.
Ava DuVernay
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The traditional ways to make a film, the traditional ways to share a film, have all collapsed. There are no gatekeepers, per se, any more, and anything can be done. Truly, I feel that.
Ava DuVernay
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Historically, you've had really muddy, unforgiving, unintentional images of black people.
Ava DuVernay
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A lot of work was done with one of my best friends and editor, Spencer Averick, who's edited everything I've ever made from the very, very first documentaries the very, very first films I made were docs, so we learned the form together.
Ava DuVernay
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I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.
Ava DuVernay
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I think there are pieces of the film [Age Of Trump] that are even more emotionally resonant and more vital to talk about than ever.
Ava DuVernay
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True change is a long game, and it remains to be seen if this is change. We've had years before where there have been great years for filmmakers and performers of color, LGBTQ filmmakers and performers, women.
Ava DuVernay
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I make films about Black women and it doesn't mean that you can't see them as a Black man, doesn't mean that he can't see them as a white man or she can't see them as a white woman.
Ava DuVernay
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I'm not to say that my male counterparts do, but certainly, it feels very special to me because I know that so few women have had the opportunity to do what I'm doing, so I'm thrilled by it every day.
Ava DuVernay
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If you have the ability to do something, you should do it.
Ava DuVernay