Ava DuVernay Has Mastered the Close Up

“The film,” Ava DuVernay told Town & Country in 2019, “is designed to inspire conversation and change.” The Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated director was discussing When They See Us, her limited series about the Exonerated Five, but she could easily have been talking about any one of her projects, which have focused on issues including voting rights (Selma), the United States prison system (Middle of Nowhere and 13th), and global societal inequality (the forthcoming Origin, inspired by Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents).

But far from being preachy, ­DuVernay’s unique brand of cinematic alchemy allows her to explore weighty issues without making the audience feel as if they’re trading popcorn for vegetables. (Want proof? When They See Us was reportedly streamed by more than 23 million viewers in its first month of release alone.)

The work doesn’t end when her movies do, however. DuVernay is a founder of Array, a social impact collective that through its programs produces and distrib­utes content, offers education initiatives, and awards grants to under­represented filmmakers. Earlier this year her Array Crew—an online database designed to connect below-the-line talent with the people who can hire them—merged with Impact, a network founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, to become one of the entertainment industry’s largest hiring networks.

During this year’s Venice Film Festival, where Origin premiered to a nine-­minute standing ovation, DuVernay was given amFAR’s Award of Inspiration at the organization’s starry annual gala. “When you’re being creative, you imagine a world that isn’t there, and you make it so,” she told the crowd. “Justice is also a space where we imagine a world that isn’t there, but we can make it so. We raise our voices, we cultivate our minds, we teach each other, we teach ourselves, we hold hands, and we change.”

This story appears in the November 2023 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW

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