Discover our portrait of the filmmaker

Ava DuVernay has been named to the Academy of Oscars and this could well be a game-changer on the problem of inclusiveness plaguing this award ceremony in the United States. Back on the career of an inspiring and militant filmmaker.

Wednesday, June 10, the American director Ava DuVernay was elected to the steering committee of the Academy of Oscars. A place that takes on meaning, endowed with a major symnbolic after #Metoo, the #Oscarssowhite or the Black Lives Matter movement which is gaining momentum since the murder of George Floyd in the United States. Ava DuVernay is one of those filmmakers who marked an entire era through her committed works necessary for understanding the anti-racist struggle. At 47, she is a pioneer of militant cinema. On the small screen as on the big, the director knew how to mark her paw with committed words and without tongue in cheek. Hope for more inclusiveness and denunciations of discrimination within the Hollywood industry.

Ava DuVernay's cinema as a militant act

It was in 2010 that she directed her first feature film I Will Follow but it is especially with the film Selma that it meets with recognition among the public as well as with critics. Selma traces part of Martin Luther King Jr's fight for civil rights. If this film marks a turning point in his career, it is because it also marks a turning point in the history of award ceremonies in the United States. Thanks to Selma, Ava Duvernay becomes the first black director to be named in the "Best Director" category at the Golden Globes and at the Oscars in the "Best Film" category. If the filmmaker did not win a statuette, the film received, in that year, the Oscar for best original song for "Glory", performed by singer John Legend and rapper Common.

From Disney to Netflix … A cinema still engaged

The success does not stop there. Ava DuVernay collaborates with Disney to achieve A shortcut in time. If this film seems to have gone unnoticed in France, it nevertheless paints an inspiring portrait for the young generations. We discovered a teenage girl, Meg, mixed race and insecure who will learn to get out of her comfort zone and gain self-confidence. Ava DuVernay touches the hearts of the youngest by highlighting a young girl in full emancipation and whose origins are not at the center of the narrative. The director delicately leaves room for inclusiveness, not to mention the sorority that has reigned throughout history thanks to actresses Mindy Kaling, Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey.

Then there are the productions that Ava DuVernay was able to set up thanks to Netflix. True to herself and to the themes that are dear to her heart, she directs the documentary The thirteenth, a work denouncing the 13th amendment to the American Constitution helping to promote an American repressive system that perpetuates the slavery of the black community. Then there is In their gaze, a real Netflix slap that returned to the case of the teenagers, wrongly accused of having raped and killed a woman in New York in the 80s.

Ava DuVernay's inspiring journey

Ava Duvernay seems to be one of those artists who are self-taught and who, throughout their careers, have been animated by their militancy and their fight against discrimination. The filmmaker has never studied cinematography or integrated an audiovisual school. At the University of California, she studied English and studied African-American studies, the main theme of her works today. Subsequently, she tried journalism before placing a camera in front of her, finally filming fictions like documentaries with, always, a fair look at the world around her.

Ava Duvernay is also an enterprising woman. With ARRAY, a film distribution company, she contributes to highlighting the works of black American artists. Founded in 2010, this company shines by the way it highlights those that mainstream institutions forget. Subsequently, she also created an educational platform to make these works more accessible and to speak, again and again, of the artists she defends. Today, she is one of the major figures to denounce police violence. Ava Duvernay has always raised awareness in the fight against racism. The murder of George Floyd obviously touched his heart as an activist, and many spoke in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

See also:

Why not use the hashtag #AllLivesMatter

Netflix films to better understand discrimination and fight racism

The casting interview A shortcut in time

Video by Natacha Couvillers