Ava DuVernay is about to have a killer fall. Her first television series, “Queen Sugar,” will premiere on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network, and she’s the first woman to open the New York Film Festival in 12 years. She’s also the first American women, and the first black woman, to ever open the festival. And her doc, “The 13th,” is the first doc to open NYFF, now in its 54th year.
Oh, and she just made history on another upcoming project: as we announced, she’s the first woman of color to helm a $100 million plus project, Disney’s “A Wrinkle in Time.”
DuVernay has been a vocal proponent of making Hollywood more inclusive. But as she tells L.A. Magazine this week, it’s not her job, or anyone’s job, to teach people what inclusivity is or educate people on progress: It’s their responsibility to take initiative and learn. When talking about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in particular, she mentioned how she had to step back from activism, and focus on her work.
“Even today, with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, I have been torn. I could get in there and spend time illuminating things for people,” she said, “But in general that’s not my work to do. It’s not my organization. The Academy has been there a long time. I don’t disparage it. For better or worse, people around the world look to the Academy as the arbiter of excellence. There are some wonderful artists involved. I’m a member. I was a part of the branch meetings this year that made sure that an unprecedented number of women and people of color were invited for the first time. But the onus is not on the marginalized to educate and remedy the problem, because we didn’t build the problem. And this is not just the Academy. For example, I’m not transgender. I’m privileged in that I live in a society that favors my gender identity over someone else’s. So it’s my job to learn about it, to listen, to try to figure out how to be an ally. If I’m forward-thinking and know that there is inequity, I should not need the transgender woman to take time out of her experience to educate me. Often, especially in our industry, women and people of color are asked to do that. It’s incumbent upon us not to. If I’m spending my time doing that, then I’m not moving forward in my own path. I’m stopped, trying to help you catch up.”
Instead of teaching anyone who asks, DuVernay would rather put her energy into her films, and her distribution company, ARRAY.
“I’m not going to depend on somebody else integrating this space, because that has gotten us where we are, which is not very far along. That’s why I started ARRAY, but it’s not just me. It’s a collective of people who work around this idea that is financed through my filmmaking and through our donors. Some of the films that ARRAY promotes have been at festivals, but because they were not at a festival that’s privileged and branded and seen as valuable by the press and distributors, they were left by the wayside.”
And finding the joy in the work, DuVernay said, is something that up and coming female directors should focus on, instead of working towards accomplishing someone else’s idea of success.
“So often we’re trying to climb this fake ladder that leads nowhere for us. It’s somebody else’s ladder going to wherever they constructed it. Stay centered. I really think that’s the key. It’s not strategy, it’s not networking. It’s not trying to get someone’s card, asking people out for coffee, being at the cocktail party, doing the panels. It’s joy. You have to find joy in the work. Because when the joy is embedded, your best work will happen.”
“Queen Sugar” premieres on OWN on September 6. For the entire interview, head over to L.A. Magazine.
