Ava DuVernay Quotes
- All Quotes
-
I made my first film when I was 35, so I firmly believe that you don't have to be one thing in life. If you're doing something, and you have a desire to do something different, give it a try.
-
I think I am a little jealous of women who have great girlfriends as adults.
-
Oprah Winfrey is a big role model for me from a business capacity and a creative capacity. She is an incredible interviewer who cultivated a certain style by inserting her own personhood into a show on national television at a time when no one was talking about empowerment, spirituality, or our inner lives.
-
I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I love community, I love to be around other people. I love to be around other people when everyone's feeling good and doing their best. Not to just be the only one in the room that's shining.
-
Women have been trained in our culture and society to ask for what we want instead of taking what we want. We've been really indoctrinated with this culture of permission. I think it's true for women, and I think it's true for people of color. It's historic, and it's unfortunate and has somehow become part of our DNA. But that time has passed.
-
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.
-
I love to see people just being regal in their own skin; it's just when they know who they are.
-
Nonviolence is pretty ballsy, pretty advanced weaponry.
-
When I was out promoting 'Selma,' I became aware of so many other films that ought to be getting distribution. And this is a problem I can do something about because of my experience.
-
Oh gosh, I'm completely allergic to historical dramas. Particularly those around the civil-rights movement. It's not my favorite thing to watch. So often they feel like medicine. Or not even a history lesson, because I really like history. Just... obligatory.
-
If you're doing something outside of dominant culture, there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.
-
We're told that independent film lovers... folks that are used to watching art house films, won't come out and see a film with black people in it - I've been told that in rooms, big rooms, studio rooms, and I know that's not true.
-
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.
-
When we say there's a dearth of women directors, it's not that there's a lack of women who direct: it's a lack of opportunities and access for women to direct and be supported in that.
-
Art morphs with what's going on in the world. We say 'Ferguson'; we don't say 'Mike Brown.' Just like we say 'Selma,' not 'Jimmie Lee Jackson.' There is something startling about the people in a particular place, a city or a small town, rising up and taking to the streets.
-
Today, when you look at social media, you see that the narrative can be overtaken by people just from Twitter and Instagram. I know when Ferguson was going down those first few nights, I was watching feeds on the ground on Twitter, not CNN.
-
Especially when we're dealing with issues of race, culture, identity, and history, the time has passed for the 'white savior' holding the black person's hand through their own history.
-
Any film that you see that has any progressive spirits that is made by any people of color or a woman is a triumph in and of itself. Whether you agree with it or not. Something that comes with some point of view and some personal perspective from a woman or a person of color is a unicorn.
-
I like silence. Aesthetically, I feel strangled by the fast cutting and a wall of sound. And I think showing black people thinking onscreen is radical.
-
I spent a whole 12 years helping other people tell their stories as a publicist, so just to be able to go and write and get behind the camera, that's my thing.
-
For female directors, there's a whole other set of things we have to think about, particularly when we are casting men, because there are some actors who have never been directed by a woman. Crew members, too.