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Ava DuVernay

Demo Day 2023

Founder | ARRAY

Ava Duvarney Headshot

Although she did not pick up a movie camera until she was thirty-two, Ava DuVernay has made history as a writer, director, and producer. She was the first African-American woman to win Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival, to be nominated for a Best Director Golden Globe, to direct a film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar®, to direct a documentary nominated for an Academy Award®, and to direct a film with a budget over $100 million. Her work includes the upcoming dramatic feature ORIGIN; the historical saga SELMA; the criminal justice documentary 13TH; and Disney's A WRINKLE IN TIME, the highest-grossing film by a Black woman director in American box office history. In 2019, her four-part series WHEN THEY SEE US was honored with 16 Emmy® nominations, while her critically-acclaimed series QUEEN SUGAR is the longest-running Black family drama in American television history.


About ARRAY

Winner of the Peabody Institutional Award, ARRAY is a narrative change and social impact collective founded by filmmaker Ava DuVernay in 2011. The organization catalyzes its work through a quartet of mission-driven entities: the film distribution arm ARRAY Releasing, the creative company ARRAY Filmworks, the programming and production hub ARRAY Creative Campus, and the nonprofit group ARRAY Alliance. ARRAY’s work ranges from the financing and production of its latest feature film, Origin, to the development of the Law Enforcement Accountability Project, to the creation of a searchable database to diversity film and TV productions called ARRAY Crew, to free movie screenings on its Los Angeles campus for Angelenos in need.