Born in 1972 in Long Beach, California, Ava DuVernay worked in film publicity and marketing, and established her own agency, before deciding to become a filmmaker. She helmed hip-hop documentaries and then released two feature films: I Will Follow (2010) and Middle of Nowhere (2012). The holiday season of 2014 saw the release of Selma, which follows a portion of Dr. Martin Luther King’s life during an urgent call for voting rights. With this critically acclaimed work, DuVernay became the first African-American female director to receive a Golden Globe nomination.
During the 1990s, DuVernay worked in film publicity before starting the DuVernay Agency, which specialized in movie marketing for African-American audiences. While on the set of the 2004 thriller Collateral, starring Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise, DuVernay felt inspired to start making her own films. She initially released shorts like 2006’s Saturday Night Life and the documentaries This Is the Life (2008), which looked at alternative hip-hop artists, and My Mic Sounds Nice: The Truth About Women in Hip Hop, which aired on BET in 2010.
That same year, DuVernay made her feature film debut as director and screenwriter with the drama I Will Follow, a poignant drama about a woman who is grieving over the loss of her aunt to cancer. The work put DuVernay on the map, with film critic Roger Ebert calling the outing, “a universal story about universal emotions.”
In 2011, DuVernay co-founded the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement, a group dedicated to supporting the release and distribution of black indie movies. In 2012, the filmmaker released her second feature Middle of Nowhere. The film, starring Emayatzy Corinealdi, Omari Hardwick, Lorraine Toussaint and David Oyelowo, looked at an ambitious, conflicted woman whose husband is incarcerated. DuVernay won the director’s prize at Sundance, becoming the first black woman to do so.
The following year, DuVernay was called upon to direct an episode of the hit Kerry Washington drama Scandal and also released the ESPN documentary Venus Vs., which followed Venus Williams’ fight for pay equity for female tennis players.
A planned biopic on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the first for the big screen, had eventually ended up with director Lee Daniels, with Oyelowo cast in the lead. But when Daniels chose to direct The Butler instead, the script for the project, written by Paul Webb, was set adrift, until Oyelowo convinced the French production company Pathé to bring DuVernay on board as director. Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt also came on board as producers, and DuVernay rewrote the script, although she didn’t receive screenwriter credit due to previous contractual stipulations.
Selma, in limited release at the end of 2014, follows the movement to secure African-American voting rights in Alabama during the mid-1960s. The film has earned almost unanimous critical praise and has been heralded as one of the year’s best.
DuVernay made further history with the work by becoming the first African-American woman to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director. Selma also received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture as well as for Original Song, with many viewers and critics questioning the Academy’s decision to exclude it from other categories.