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Quote by Ava DuVernay

“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.”

Quote by Ava DuVernay

Author

Ava DuVernay is an American filmmaker recognized for her contributions to independent cinema, particularly for her films that delve into African American history and culture. Born on August 24, 1972, DuVernay has directed several significant films, including 'Middle of Nowhere' and '13th', which have been praised for their narrative depth and social commentary. more

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“Netflix represents, as well as all the streaming services, something that I've been talking about being so important to inclusive voices around films.”

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“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.”

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“A lot of work was done with one of my best friends and editor, Spencer Averick, who's edited everything I've ever made from the very, very first documentaries; the very, very first films I made were docs, so we learned the form together.”

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“When I went out to shoot for the first time, I thought this was going to be about the prison industrial complex, purely about prison for profit and the ways in which there's an industry making money and profiting off punishment.”

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“I soon found I could not talk about that in a vacuum without understanding the historical, cultural, political context, and giving it some legacy and some roots, and so then it just started to have tentacles that just spread out in all these places, and already a vicious project became pretty overwhelming in scope, and so it was a lot of diligent, day-to-day fighting with the footage, trying to get it down to a place where it was manageable and emotional.”

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Author:Ava DuVernay

“Folks can look at this issue and read it and it can feel like medicine, it can feel epidemic. We wanted this to hit people in their gut, and the hope is that by doing that, we can get more people to think more deeply about these issues.”

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Author:Ava DuVernay

“I feel like it had an impact, in that it started the attention that has been paid to what was happening. It started to get us into this whole conversation about prison reform, the whole bipartisan dialogue that's been happening over the past five, six years about this, where you have a Van Jones and a Newt Gingrich, and you have the Rick Perrys and so forth getting up and talking about the need to reform.”

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Author:Ava DuVernay

“What we tried to do in 13th was get to the bottom of that. What were they motivated by? But certainly the attention that the Attorney General's office paid to it allowed for there to be some dialogue across the aisle that I think were the first steps then in change.”

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Author:Ava DuVernay

“If you have the ability to do something, you should do it.”

Ifs Should Ability

Author:Ava DuVernay

“I think there are a lot of people in this industry that have the ability, that have the position, they have the opportunity, they have the privilege to call the shots and could do it too.”

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Author:Ava DuVernay