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 Rudy Lewis: The Voice That Changed the World
Suggested by kamsismith
Rudy Lewis, born Charles Rudolph Harrell, was a remarkable voice in a transformative era of music, but his life was tragically cut short at the age of 27. Best known for his tenure as the lead singer of The Drifters, Rudy’s voice helped define the soul and rhythm and blues sound of the 1960s. Yet, his story is one of triumph, mystery, and profound loss, often overshadowed by his untimely passing in 1964. Rudy Lewis: The Voice That Changed the World is a poignant, dramatic portrayal of his rise from humble beginnings to stardom, offering an intimate look at the pressures of fame, the personal demons he battled, and the timeless music he left behind. The film takes audiences through Rudy's early life in Harlem, capturing his raw passion for music, his deep connection to African American musical traditions, and his struggles with being in the shadow of his more famous bandmates. His work with The Drifters, particularly on hits like "Up on the Roof" and "Under the Boardwalk," revolutionized the sound of R&B and influenced the future of popular music. The film delves into his complex relationship with the group, his battle with self-doubt, and the toll that the music industry pressures took on him.
