Age: 53
female
Ava Marie DuVernay (/ˌdjuːvərˈneɪ/; born August 24, 1972) is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. She is a recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, a BAFTA Film Award, and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. In 2011, she founded her independent distribution company ARRAY. After making her directorial debut with I Will Follow (2010), DuVernay won the directing award in the U.S. dramatic competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for her second feature film, Middle of Nowhere, becoming the first black woman to win the award. For her work on Selma (2014), a biopic about Martin Luther King Jr., DuVernay became the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director; the film went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Her other film credits include the Academy Award-nominated Netflix documentary 13th (2016) and the Disney fantasy film A Wrinkle in Time (2018), the latter making her the first African-American woman to direct a film with a $100 million budget. In 2023, she directed the biographical film Origin based on Isabel Wilkerson's book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020). DuVernay's television credits include the OWN drama series Queen Sugar (2016) and two Netflix drama limited series: When They See Us (2019), based on the 1989 Central Park jogger case, and Colin in Black & White (2021), based on the teenage years of NFL player Colin Kaepernick. In 2017, DuVernay was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In 2020, she was elected to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences board of governors as part of the directors branch. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ava DuVernay, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Ava DuVernay
Director
for Director in Groove & Legacy: The Willie Hutch Story
Suggested by kamsismith
Willie Hutch’s name may not immediately ring bells like Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye, but his contributions to Motown and beyond are the backbone of a sound that defined an era. Groove & Legacy: The Willie Hutch Story is a six-episode miniseries that delves into the life and career of this unsung hero, whose music blended social consciousness, raw emotion, and a uniquely powerful groove. The series begins in 1940s Los Angeles, where a young Willie Hutch dreams of making music. We follow his journey through the struggles of being a Black artist in America, his pivotal break as a songwriter for the Fifth Dimension, and his transformative move to Motown. As a producer, songwriter, and solo artist, Hutch crafted classics like "I'll Be There" for the Jackson 5 and unforgettable soundtracks for Blaxploitation films like The Mack and Foxy Brown. Each episode explores the highs and lows of Hutch’s career: his creative partnership with Berry Gordy, the cultural revolution sparked by his cinematic scores, and the personal sacrifices behind his relentless pursuit of greatness. At the heart of the series is the tension between his passion for creating music that uplifts and empowers and the commercial pressures of the cutthroat music industry.
