Ava DuVernay quotes

Ava DuVernay is an acclaimed American director, producer, and screenwriter known for her powerful films and TV projects. Her work focuses on issues of race, social justice, and representation in the media. She has become a trailblazer in Hollywood, breaking new ground for women and people of color. Here are 25 of her quotes:

I'm a prison abolitionist because the prison system as it is set up is just not working. It's horrible.

Ava DuVernay

I wish I could be the black woman Soderbergh, and put the camera on my shoulder and shoot beautifully while I directed.

Ava DuVernay

I don't understand the iPhone. I just don't get it. Don't ya'll have to write serious emails throughout the day? How can you possibly manage detailed missives on a phone with no keys?

Ava DuVernay

If you're doing something outside of dominant culture there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.

Ava DuVernay

All the traditional models for doing things are collapsing; from music to publishing to film, and it's a wide open door for people who are creative to do what they need to do without having institutions block their art.

Ava DuVernay

I make films about Black women and it doesn't mean that you can't see them as a Black man, doesn't mean that he can't see them as a white man or she can't see them as a white woman.

Ava DuVernay

I really admire Werner Herzog and Spike Lee. They're amazing documentarians. If you took away all the narratives, they'd just be amazing documentarians.

Ava DuVernay

I think good publicists are just like good mommies - always looking out, making sure folks are comfortable and making sure that folks are on time and making sure that folks are getting what they need and know what they need to do.

Ava DuVernay

As long as you're in an environment where the worth of the project isn't based on the project but what its predecessors did, it's not truly inclusive.

Ava DuVernay

All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.

Ava DuVernay

Filmmakers need to realize that their job isn't done when they lock picture. We must see our films through.

Ava DuVernay

Film school was a privilege I could not afford.

Ava DuVernay

I've been to Sundance eight times as a publicist and thought I was very prepared. I mean, who could've been more prepared for me? A publicist who's been there eight times. Getting there as a filmmaker was a completely surreal, different, unexpected experience.

Ava DuVernay

I tell the stories that are of interest to me.

Ava DuVernay

You know, often films that are deemed positive, nobody wants to see them.

Ava DuVernay

I think that if we really want to break it down, that non-black filmmakers have had many, many years and many, many opportunities to tell many, many stories about themselves, and black filmmakers have not had as many years, as many opportunities, as many films to explore the nuances of our reality.

Ava DuVernay

When I'm marketing a film, whether its mine or someone else's, I work with a great deal of strategy and elbow grease until the job is done.

Ava DuVernay

I think that women definitely have a special bond as friends that is hard to describe to men, and we don't often see that portrayed narratively.

Ava DuVernay

I didn't start out thinking that I could ever make films. I started out being a film lover, loving films, and wanting to have a job that put me close to them and close to filmmakers and close to film sets.

Ava DuVernay

In documentaries, there's a truth that unfolds unnaturally, and you get to chronicle it. In narratives, you have to create the situations so that the truth will come out.

Ava DuVernay

I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.

Ava DuVernay

I just don't think there's a lot of support for the woman's voice in cinema, and it becomes really difficult to raise that money and start again every time.

Ava DuVernay