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Most of us think prison is a place where bad people go - which is what I thought for a long time - until you really start to look inside the system and you see, this is not right.

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
Think
Place
Thinking
Thought
People
Look
Looks
Right
Prison
Long
Inside
Really
System
Time
Start

More quotes by 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.
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I think I am a little jealous of women who have great girlfriends as adults.
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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.
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Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.
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Filmmakers need to realize that their job isn't done when they lock picture. We must see our films through. Studios no longer do this for a large percentage of films. The odds that your film will get a major campaign are dim these days. So you must find and nurture your own audience and make sure your film has a life.
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I was talking to Shonda Rhimes the other day and I said, I. Do. Not. Know. How. You. Do. This. While we're writing episode 10, episode 6 is shooting, episode 3 is in the edit, and episode 2 is in its color session...You've got seven episodes in different parts! It's a wild, wild, wild ride, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was badass and amazing
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We're living based on laws and ideas that we, as a society, embraced back in the days of slavery.
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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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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.
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Working full-time as a filmmaker has been a dream come true.
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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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If you have the ability to do something, you should do it.
Ava DuVernay
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I'm a huge Dirty Dancing fan. I feel like I should be reading [William] Shakespeare, but I'm watching Baby not be in a corner.
Ava DuVernay
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I wish I could be the black woman Soderbergh, and put the camera on my shoulder and shoot beautifully while I directed.
Ava DuVernay
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It sounds kind of flighty, filmmaker-y, but I believe films are a piece of art. They are meant to be what they're meant to be, and sometimes the artist is informed by the film of what it needs to be.
Ava DuVernay
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When I'm marketing a film, whether its mine or someone else's, I work with a great deal of strategy and elbow grease until the job is done.
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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Stop asking, start doing.
Ava DuVernay
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[ Hollywood] is a patriarchy, headed by men and built for men.
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