Ava DuVernay
Ava DuVernay is an Academy Award nominee and winner of the Emmy, BAFTA, Sundance, Image, and Peabody Awards. Her feature film directorial work includes the historical drama Selma, the criminal justice documentary 13th, and Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time, which made her the highest grossing Black woman director in American box office history. Her television work includes the four-part limited series When They See Us, which was honored with 16 Emmy nominations, and the critically acclaimed Queen Sugar, which is the longest-running Black family drama in American television history. Her latest project is the feature film Origin, based on the best-selling book Caste: The Origin of our Discontents by Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson.
DuVernay amplifies the work of directors of color and women of all kinds through her narrative change collective, ARRAY, which was the winner of the 2021 Peabody Institutional Award. DuVernay sits on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, representing the directors branch in her second term. She is also a Vice-President of the Directors Guild of America and an advisory board member of the American Film Institute.