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.
It’s 1971, and David Gulpilil, an 18-year-old Aboriginal actor fresh off his cinematic debut in Walkabout, is taking his first steps into a world far removed from the Arnhem Land where he grew up. Touring across international cities, he’s bewildered by his sudden stardom and grappling with a culture that celebrates him as an icon yet is blind to the depths of his roots. Amid the whirlwind, he crosses paths with Bob Marley in a shared hotel lobby, drawn together by the mutual fascination of their heritages. David introduces Bob to the ancient tones of the didgeridoo, while Bob shares the spirituality of ganja. This chance encounter forms a bond between them, one that soon attracts other free spirits of the time, each of whom sees in David a unique connection to his journey: John Lennon, seeking purpose post-Beatles; Bruce Lee, a symbol of strength and Eastern philosophy; Marlon Brando, wrestling with Hollywood’s hypocrisy; and Jimi Hendrix, embodying the music and magic of rebellion.
