Guy Raz - Built It Productions

Raquel Aparicio

Array - Filmmaker Ava DuVernay

By her early thirties, Ava DuVernay was already a successful entrepreneur, having founded her own film publicity agency in Los Angeles. But after years of watching other people make films, she started to get an itch to tell her own stories onscreen.

Ava's first films were rooted in deeply personal experiences: growing up with her sisters in Compton, performing Hip Hop at Open Mic Night at the Good Life Café in L.A. Her self-funded and self-distributed projects began to draw attention, and in 2012, Ava won the award for best directing at the Sundance Film Festival.

She went on to direct powerful projects like Selma, 13th, and When They See Us; and through her production and distribution company ARRAY, she's created a movement that is helping change how movies are made—and who gets to make them.

Show Notes:

1:29 - Intro
3:55 - Early inspirations
11:37 - Attending UCLA
14:58 - Performing in a hip-hop duo
17:39 - Working at CBS to pursue journalism
19:19 - Working in film publicity
21:15 - Starting a publicity agency
24:40 - Attracting and working with clients
29:15 - Working on Collateral
33:53 - Learning how to make a movie
38:39 - Making her first short film
43:10 - Getting into a short film festival
48:00 - Creating I Will Follow
51:47 - Getting the film into theaters
56:01 - Funding Middle of Nowhere
57:00 - Meeting David Oyelowo
63:10 - Getting into Sundance Film Festival
67:50 - Finding her own opportunities
69:18 - Getting the job to direct Selma
73:50 - Rewriting the script
75:05 - Filming Selma
77:27 - Getting snubbed for best director
79:12 - Thoughts on directing
83:50 - Doing things unhindered
87:44 - Reforming and rebuilding the system
89:14 - Luck vs. hard work

Array - Filmmaker Ava DuVernay

Show Notes:

Selected Links:

Burt's Bees - Roxanne Quimby (2019)

Logic - Logic & Chris Zarou (2018)

Stacy's Pita Chips - Stacy Madison (2019)

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