Ava Duvernay Essay

Ava DuVernay: A Female Director Making History
Nominated for two Academy Awards and four Golden Globes, Ava DuVernay’s is an African-American director, writer, and filmmaker. DuVernay’s is best known for her film “Selma” about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s leadership in the struggle for voting rights and current directorial feature-length documentary the 13TH. DuVernay grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from University of California Los Angeles in 1995, with a degree in African-American Studies and English. DuVernay saw that there was a demand to make more non-stereotypical African-American films and wanted to bridge the gap in the film industry. Today DuVernay, successful career continues to peak, with her being the first African-American woman to be nominated for Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival and the first African-American female director to be

She has also worked in television as a director and producer. Sticking to her roots, DuVernay was the executive producer and directed Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), civil rights crime drama pilot “For Justice”. That same year she started working on the dramatic television series for The Oprah Winfrey Network entitled “Queen Sugar”. The television series is based on the novel “Queen Sugar”, by Natalie Bazile. The series is about three siblings; two sisters, one who is a journalist and activist from New Orleans, and a modern mother and wife who leaves her lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles and moves back home to claim an inherit her father’s 800-acre sugarcane farm and their brother, a single parent struggling to find a job and raise his son. The series gained positive reviews and got picked up for a second season. The series is nominated for four NAACP Image Awards, Outstanding Drama Series, Outstand Actor in a Drama Series, Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series, and Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic