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I know that there are a lot of great women that have gone before me, so it's important to acknowledge them.

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
Women
Important
Great
Acknowledge
Gone

More quotes by Ava DuVernay

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There's no reason not to employ, seek out and take a chance on a woman filmmaker that you might not have been looking at her direction. She's not done it before because you've not given her the opportunity to do it before, and I'm just happy that folks like Jessica Jones' Melissa Rosenberg and folks like Ryan Murphy are also embracing this idea.
Ava DuVernay
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Netflix represents, as well as all the streaming services, something that I've been talking about being so important to inclusive voices around films.
Ava DuVernay
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I know that sounds a little bit corny, but I've found some solace in that. I hope art can continue to do that for people, I really do.
Ava DuVernay
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As long as you're in an environment where the worth of the project isn't based on the project but what its predecessors did, it's not truly inclusive.
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 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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Don't wait for permission to do something creative.
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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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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When I went out to shoot for the first time, I thought this was going to be about the prison industrial complex, purely about prison for profit and the ways in which there's an industry making money and profiting off punishment.
Ava DuVernay
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The terrain of the face is the most dynamic thing you can point the camera at, to me. I love production design and bells and whistles and all of that. I love a technograin as much as the next gal, but a great actor's face? What else should we be looking at?
Ava DuVernay
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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.
Ava DuVernay
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Historically, you've had really muddy, unforgiving, unintentional images of black people.
Ava DuVernay
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We're living based on laws and ideas that we, as a society, embraced back in the days of slavery.
Ava DuVernay
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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
Ava DuVernay
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Ignore the glass ceiling and do your work. If you're focusing on the glass ceiling, focusing on what you don't have, focusing on the limitations, then you will be limited. My way was to work, make my short... make my documentary... make my small films... use my own money... raise money myself... and stay shooting and focused on each project.
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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I tell the stories that are of interest to me.
Ava DuVernay
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I'm not the most athletic gal, but because making a movie is very physical, I slow down on the Krispy Kreme and Ice Blendeds. I start to get leaner and more focused - like I'm going into a boxing match - because I'm about to really try to put this idea on its feet.
Ava DuVernay
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Figure out what you need to do to be the heroine of your own story.
Ava DuVernay