Ava DuVernay
When we're talking about diversity, it's not a box to check. It is a reality that should be deeply felt and held and valued by all of us.
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.
Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.
Film is a mirror. I want to see more filmmakers. We all want to see ourselves.
Art is something that grows and breathes and lives, and it shouldn't be predicated on the success of box office - but it is. But within that, you have to give people a chance to find their voice, to play, to continue to create.
I'm not signing on to direct 'Black Panther.' I think I'll just say we had different ideas about what the story would be. Marvel has a certain way of doing things, and I think they're fantastic, and a lot of people love what they do. I loved that they reached out to me.
If I can be in a place where my image is encouraging people to see different people behind the camera, and my image and the images I make can help open up a certain world view, I think that's all a part of a larger spirit of change and progress, and I'm happy to be part of it.
It's not enough even to have one black Barbie... because black women are not a monolith.
Every filmmaker imbues a movie with their own point of view.
It's emotional for artists who are women and people of color to have less value placed on our worldview.
You could make the most beautiful film, and that weekend it's raining too hard on the East Coast, and no one goes out. Artists should have a chance to do it again. That's the challenge: Women artists don't get a second chance. People-of-color artists don't get a second chance. You're put in director's jail, and that's a wrap.
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.
Diversity is not one in the room. Diversity is not two in the room. Diversity is not three in the room. True diversity is half the room.
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.
If your dream is only about you, it's too small.
If you're doing something outside of dominant culture, there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.
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.
The best art is realized when you can share the experience of making of it and not just the presentation of it, so that the audience is part of the creation and not just part of the consumption. Then it becomes much more full-bodied and robust.
I usually make films with $2 and a paper clip.
There can be a progression to the dream; there can be steps to it. When you dissect any successful person's story, it's really rare that it was all or nothing. It's steps, and I just try to remind myself of that in terms of the things that I want; it's like, everything is a step, leading you to where you need to go.
'Queen Sugar' is a drama about family. It's something that allows us to be ourselves and see the ways that we interact with our own families.
With the Black Lives Matter movement, a lot of the focus is on the protest and dissent. I'm hoping to dismantle the public notion - for folks outside of the community - of what Black Lives Matter means. It's really about saying that black lives matter: that humanity is the same when you go inside people's homes.
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.
I tell the stories that are of interest to me.
All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.
I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.
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.
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.
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.
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'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.
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?
I wish I could be the black woman Soderbergh, and put the camera on my shoulder and shoot beautifully while I directed.
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.
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.
Film school was a privilege I could not afford.
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.
Filmmakers need to realize that their job isn't done when they lock picture. We must see our films through.
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 think I am a little jealous of women who have great girlfriends as adults.
Positive characterizations are complex characterizations. That's all we need to know. They shouldn't be saccharine. They shouldn't feel like medicine.
You know, often films that are deemed positive, nobody wants to see them.
I'm a prison abolitionist because the prison system as it is set up is just not working. It's horrible.
I think for female filmmakers a big issue is making their second and third films.
There's a belonging problem in Hollywood. Who dictates who belongs? The very body who dictates that looks all one way.
As a filmmaker, you put the film out there, and you just want it to be okay. You don't want to let people down; you don't want to embarrass yourself.
'Diversity' is like, 'Ugh, I have to do diversity.' I recognize and celebrate what it is, but that word, to me, is a disconnect.
My mother is from Compton, California, but my father is from Hayneville, Alabama, and that's less than 20 miles from Selma.
You gotta follow the white guys. Truly. They've got this thing wired. Too often, we live within their games, so why would you not study what works? Take away the bad stuff - because there's a lot - and use the savvy interesting stuff and figure out how they can apply. It's a good one for the ladies.