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.
In the late '70s and early '80s, Roger Troutman and his band Zapp changed the music landscape forever. Known for their innovative use of the talk box, they created a futuristic sound that bridged R&B, funk, and electronic music, laying the foundation for hip-hop and G-funk years before it even had a name. Zapp: Electric Dreams is a gritty, four-part biopic miniseries that captures the meteoric rise of a family band from Dayton, Ohio, their undeniable musical impact, and the personal battles that nearly tore them apart. The series opens with Roger, an ambitious and talented young musician, transforming his family’s modest garage into a music lab. He and his siblings, all skilled musicians in their own right, break into the industry with the infectious hit "More Bounce to the Ounce," challenging racial and industry norms with their audacious sound. Each episode unpacks the story of Zapp, from their tense partnership with George Clinton to their groundbreaking work with Dr. Dre and Tupac, whose collaborations made Zapp’s sound iconic to a new generation. But with fame comes struggle: Roger’s relationships with his brothers are strained by creative differences, financial pressures, and the conflicts of stardom.
