Ava DuVernay Quotes About Film
-
Black people loving and losing is something we don’t see enough of. We’re always in these heightened situations like something big is happening, something funny or something violent. And you know what? Sometimes we die of breast cancer or a broken heart. Things happen that are just not being explored cinematically. It’s time we reinvigorated that type of film.
→ -
It sounds kind of flighty, filmmaker-y, but I believe films are a piece of art. They are meant to be what they're meant to be, and sometimes the artist is informed by the film of what it needs to be.
→ -
Time will tell ... whether folks want to point and stare at the black woman filmmaker who made a certain kind of film, and pat her on the back, or if they want to actually roll up the sleeves and do a little bit of work so that there can be more of me coming through.
→ -
I think it's a wonderful time to be a black woman who makes films. It's a good time to be an artist period. Traditional models of making and consuming art are breaking down and being rebuilt. I find that to be incredibly exciting as a filmmaker and film marketer.
→ -
I'm making and marketing my films, by any means necessary, and enjoying life while I do so.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.
→ -
Netflix represents, as well as all the streaming services, something that I've been talking about being so important to inclusive voices around films.
→ -
I love making films. I'm happiest when I'm doing it. For me, the fear is not being able to make the next thing and not being able, as a woman filmmaker and as a filmmaker of color, to put together the resources to make another thing.
→ -
Roger Ebert was such a champion of underrepresented filmmakers. He was a very big deal to me. It shows the power of critics. People who write about film, like you, can really affect the confidence of a young filmmaker. He did that for me, so it was such a pleasure to have an opportunity to talk about Roger in the movie.
→ -
Filmmakers need to realize that their job isn't done when they lock picture. We must see our films through.
→ -
I know how to make films and now I'm able to make films with the resources and the tools that match my imagination, and what filmmaker doesn't want to do that? I feel very fortunate to have that. I don't take it for granted.
→ -
I know when we were making the film [ Age Of Trump] that we knew that there was going to be some kind of radical change coming on the horizon. That's why it was important for us to get it out before the election.
→ -
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.
→ -
There's never been a film with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the center released in theaters. Ever! One does not exist. You've only seen tele-films and stage plays about him. Yet, we have big screens biopics about all kinds of people. So, I think it's only right that there be a full-length feature about Dr. King. I don't think there could be enough of them, but there should be at least one. So, here it is!
→ -
I think there are pieces of the film [Age Of Trump] that are even more emotionally resonant and more vital to talk about than ever.
→ -
Filmmakers need to realize that their job isn't done when they lock picture. We must see our films through. Studios no longer do this for a large percentage of films. The odds that your film will get a major campaign are dim these days. So you must find and nurture your own audience and make sure your film has a life.
→ -
All these women had directed movies that I loved on the film festival circuit, but couldn't get a job making television. That's how locked down TV is.
→ -
I just remember not having access to films as a young person who loved films but living in Compton.
→ -
I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.
→ -
It was easy for me to show the films to the studio and the network and say, "This is who I'm hiring."
→ -
For film, you know, the Tarantinos and Nolans of the world who are very focused on a certain kind of film aesthetic and a certain kind of presentation, to be honest, that comes from a place of privilege. It comes from a place of always having access to such, but when you ain't never - you can't see it because you can't even get to it.
→ -
More people have seen 13th on Netflix than have seen all my films put together between the Sundance winners and Selma, and the whole international distribution of film.
→ -
The traditional ways to make a film, the traditional ways to share a film, have all collapsed. There are no gatekeepers, per se, any more, and anything can be done. Truly, I feel that.
→ -
Film school was a privilege I could not afford.
→ -
I thing for female filmmakers a big issue is making their second and third films. You see the statistics, and the dropoff on the second and third [films] , are dire.
→ -
Ignore the glass ceiling and do your work. If you're focusing on the glass ceiling, focusing on what you don't have, focusing on the limitations, then you will be limited. My way was to work, make my short... make my documentary... make my small films... use my own money... raise money myself... and stay shooting and focused on each project.
→ -
I mean, if this [film Age of Trump] wasn't on Netflix, it would be playing at some lovely art house theater on the West Side once or twice or for a week or maybe two weeks if I was lucky and then it would go away, and I'd be lucky if I could sell the DVDs off my website.
→ -
I just remember not having access to films as a young person who loved films but living in Compton. In order to see the film, I had to get on the bus and travel quite a ways to get to an arthouse theater - none of which you're gonna find in black and brown communities - to see anything that was outside of what the studios fed me, and that's not the case anymore.
→
Related Authors
-
Emayatzy E. Corinealdi Film actress -
Morten Tyldum Film director -
Adepero Oduye Actress -
Gabrielle Union Actress -
Coretta Scott King Author -
-
Venus Williams Tennis player -
Lyndon B. Johnson 36th U.S. President -
Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil rights activist -
Common Hip-hop artist -
Issa Rae Writer -
Tim Roth Actor -
Carmen Ejogo Film actress -
Lee Daniels Film actor -
Alfre Woodard Film actress -
Oprah Winfrey Media proprietor -
Ryan Coogler Film director -
Lorraine Toussaint Film actress -
Rutina Wesley Film actress -
David Oyelowo Actor