Ava DuVernay

1972 - Present

Ava Marie DuVernay is an American Director, producer, and writer who is best known for her expertise in exploring the African American experience through filmmaking. Ava graduated from The University of California Los Angeles in 1995 with a Bachelor's Degree in English and African American studies. Just a few years out of college, Ava started her own company to market movies before shifting her creative focus to writing, directing, and producing films in 2008. Despite her accolades, Ava did not pick up a camera until she was 32 years old. In her first feature film, This Is the Life (2008) she highlighted the history of the hip-hop movement in Los Angeles in the 1990s. Shortly after, Ava produced a television series of music documentaries which included My Mic Sounds Nice (2010). Other note-worthy films include the documentary 13th, When They See Us, and A Wrinkle In Time. In 2012, Ava became the first African American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2013, Ava was just the second black woman in history to be invited to join both the director’s and writer’s branches of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.