Ava DuVernay

Ava DuVernay was born on August 24, 1972, in Long Beach, California. She was raised in Lynwood, California, by her mother, Darlene Sexton, an educator, and her stepfather, Murray Maye. Her biological father, Joseph Marcel DuVernay III, had Louisiana Creole ancestry. During her childhood summers, she visited her stepfather’s family home near Selma, Alabama, an experience that later influenced her work. She graduated from Saint Joseph High School in Lakewood in 1990 and pursued a double BA major in English literature and African-American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her initial career path was in journalism, including an internship with CBS News covering the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Disillusioned with journalism, she transitioned into public relations, working for companies such as 20th Century Fox and Savoy Pictures before establishing her own public relations firm, The DuVernay Agency (DVAPR), in 1999. Through DVAPR, she provided marketing and PR services for films like “Lumumba,” “Spy Kids,” “Shrek 2,” “The Terminal,” “Collateral,” and “Dreamgirls.”

DuVernay entered filmmaking at the age of 32, funding her first short film, “Saturday Night Life” (2005), with $6,000. Her feature directorial debut was the documentary “This Is the Life” (2008), which chronicled the Los Angeles hip hop movement of the 1990s. This film garnered multiple audience awards at film festivals. In 2011, she released her first narrative feature, “I Will Follow,” a drama she self-financed. Her subsequent narrative feature, “Middle of Nowhere” (2012), earned her the Best Director Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, making her the first African-American woman to receive this award. She continued her impactful work with “Selma” (2014), a biographical drama about Martin Luther King Jr., which earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director and an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. Following “Selma,” DuVernay declined an offer to direct Marvel’s “Black Panther” due to creative differences, expressing her commitment to her unique vision. In 2016, she released the critically acclaimed Netflix documentary “13th,” which explored racial inequality in the U.S. criminal justice system and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.

Her career expanded further with the Disney fantasy film “A Wrinkle in Time” (2018), which made her the first African-American woman to direct a live-action film with a budget exceeding $100 million. While the film received mixed reviews, it contributed to a significant milestone for female directors. DuVernay has also made a substantial mark in television, creating and executive producing the OWN drama series “Queen Sugar” (2016) and the Netflix limited drama series “When They See Us” (2019), based on the Central Park jogger case. “When They See Us” received universal acclaim and a record 16 Emmy nominations. Her recent work includes “Origin” (2023), an adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, making her the first African American woman to have a film compete for the Golden Lion. Throughout her career, DuVernay has continuously championed diverse voices in filmmaking through her independent distribution company, ARRAY, which she founded in 2010 to focus on films by and about Black people, later expanding to include women filmmakers. In 2017, she was recognized on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.