WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.580 You know, if you look at the stories we love 00:00:01.580 --> 00:00:05.440 to tell as a culture, we're absolutely obsessed 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:07.500 with the young prodigy. Oh, completely. Right. 00:00:07.660 --> 00:00:10.199 It's like the Mozart composing symphonies at 00:00:10.199 --> 00:00:14.419 age five or the tech billionaire in a hoodie 00:00:14.419 --> 00:00:17.219 dropping out of college at 19 to change the world. 00:00:17.300 --> 00:00:20.670 Or the visionary director who makes their generation 00:00:20.670 --> 00:00:23.269 -defining masterpiece, you know, fresh out of 00:00:23.269 --> 00:00:26.769 film school. Exactly. We are constantly sold 00:00:26.769 --> 00:00:29.070 this underlying idea that if you haven't found 00:00:29.070 --> 00:00:31.230 your ultimate calling and completely dominated 00:00:31.230 --> 00:00:34.070 your field by your mid -20s, well, you've somehow 00:00:34.070 --> 00:00:36.609 missed the boat. Like, the window is just closed. 00:00:36.729 --> 00:00:39.530 It's a very pervasive narrative, and frankly, 00:00:39.710 --> 00:00:42.280 it's a very exhausting one. Yeah. It really is. 00:00:42.340 --> 00:00:44.979 I mean, it's designed to make anyone who hasn't 00:00:44.979 --> 00:00:47.340 made it early feel like they're constantly running 00:00:47.340 --> 00:00:50.000 out of time or that their previous life experiences 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.600 are just wasted years. Which is exactly why today's 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:55.619 source material is so refreshing. We are doing 00:00:55.619 --> 00:00:58.679 a deep dive into a comprehensive look at the 00:00:58.679 --> 00:01:01.659 life and career of American filmmaker Ava DuVernay. 00:01:01.820 --> 00:01:03.880 And her story completely shatters that young 00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:06.719 prodigy myth. It really does. We are looking 00:01:06.719 --> 00:01:10.140 at an absolute master class in the power of the 00:01:10.140 --> 00:01:13.019 late start because the woman who eventually became 00:01:13.019 --> 00:01:16.620 a history making director, producer, and distributor, 00:01:17.500 --> 00:01:20.420 someone who literally shifted the culture, didn't 00:01:20.420 --> 00:01:22.819 even pick up a camera to direct her first short 00:01:22.819 --> 00:01:25.099 film until she was 32 years old. Which, if you 00:01:25.099 --> 00:01:27.000 know anything about the traditional Hollywood 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:31.000 ecosystem and its rampant ageism, is practically 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.200 unheard of. Right. The gates are usually locked 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:35.019 tight by that point. So our mission for this 00:01:35.019 --> 00:01:37.299 deep dive isn't just to read through her biography. 00:01:37.819 --> 00:01:40.799 We want to treat her story like a heist. I like 00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:43.079 that. A heist? Yeah, we want to explore exactly 00:01:43.079 --> 00:01:45.640 how she hacked the system. Like, how does someone 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:48.140 transition from being a PR publicist to an Oscar 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:50.599 -nominated powerhouse? We are going to trace 00:01:50.599 --> 00:01:53.620 her journey and uncover how she used her absolute 00:01:53.620 --> 00:01:56.680 outsider status to bypass the gatekeepers and 00:01:56.680 --> 00:01:58.900 completely rewrite the rules of the entertainment 00:01:58.900 --> 00:02:01.230 industry. And it really is a playbook. It is. 00:02:01.469 --> 00:02:04.090 And as we go through this, I want you, the listener, 00:02:04.269 --> 00:02:07.969 to think about an industry or a field that feels 00:02:07.969 --> 00:02:10.810 completely impenetrable to you right now. Maybe 00:02:10.810 --> 00:02:12.849 it's a career pivot you've been dreaming of or 00:02:12.849 --> 00:02:15.590 a creative pursuit you think you're too old for. 00:02:15.990 --> 00:02:18.310 Because I promise you, DuVernay's playbook offers 00:02:18.310 --> 00:02:20.870 a brilliant blueprint for breaking into that 00:02:20.870 --> 00:02:23.610 space. OK, let's unpack this. If she didn't start 00:02:23.610 --> 00:02:25.969 with the camera, what was her original way in? 00:02:26.270 --> 00:02:29.229 It actually begins with a deep interest in journalism. 00:02:29.409 --> 00:02:32.650 Oh, journalism. Yeah. So as a student at UCLA, 00:02:33.090 --> 00:02:34.930 where she double majored in English literature 00:02:34.930 --> 00:02:37.530 and African -American studies, she landed an 00:02:37.530 --> 00:02:40.569 internship with CBS News. Okay, that's a solid 00:02:40.569 --> 00:02:42.530 start. But she didn't just get fetching coffee 00:02:42.530 --> 00:02:45.030 duty. Her assignment was helping to cover the 00:02:45.030 --> 00:02:47.889 O .J. Simpson murder trial. Wait, really? The 00:02:47.889 --> 00:02:50.250 O .J. trial? Talk about being thrown right into 00:02:50.250 --> 00:02:52.409 the deep end of the media pool. That wasn't just 00:02:52.409 --> 00:02:54.930 a trial. That was the media circus of the century. 00:02:55.289 --> 00:02:56.750 Exactly. And think about what she was absorbing 00:02:56.750 --> 00:02:59.789 there. She was witnessing firsthand how narratives 00:02:59.789 --> 00:03:02.889 are constructed in real time. Right. How the 00:03:02.889 --> 00:03:05.729 media shapes public perception, how stories are 00:03:05.729 --> 00:03:08.330 packaged for a mass audience, and how different 00:03:08.330 --> 00:03:10.750 demographics react to the exact same information. 00:03:11.370 --> 00:03:14.069 But she didn't stay in journalism. No, she didn't. 00:03:14.370 --> 00:03:16.370 According to our sources, she quickly became 00:03:16.370 --> 00:03:19.199 disillusioned with it. She realized the realities 00:03:19.199 --> 00:03:21.759 of the field just didn't match her aspirations 00:03:21.759 --> 00:03:24.819 to tell broader stories, so she pivoted. So where 00:03:24.819 --> 00:03:26.939 did she go? She moved into public relations, 00:03:27.419 --> 00:03:29.879 working as a junior publicist at places like 00:03:29.879 --> 00:03:32.759 20th Century Fox, and then she makes a massive 00:03:32.759 --> 00:03:36.360 leap in 1999. She opens her own public relations 00:03:36.360 --> 00:03:39.530 firm, the DuVernay Agency. And what kind of PR 00:03:39.530 --> 00:03:41.469 are we talking about here? Was she just, like, 00:03:41.629 --> 00:03:43.770 repping local indie bands, or was she working 00:03:43.770 --> 00:03:45.889 her way up the studio ladder? Oh, she was right 00:03:45.889 --> 00:03:47.750 at the top of the ladder. Her agency worked on 00:03:47.750 --> 00:03:50.849 the marketing campaigns for massive culture -defining 00:03:50.849 --> 00:03:53.430 Hollywood hits. Like what? We're talking Spy 00:03:53.430 --> 00:03:57.930 Kids, Shrek 2... Dream girls. No way. Yeah, she 00:03:57.930 --> 00:03:59.870 is right there in the room seeing exactly how 00:03:59.870 --> 00:04:02.069 the biggest studios in the world market their 00:04:02.069 --> 00:04:04.129 billion dollar products. See, I look at this 00:04:04.129 --> 00:04:07.110 phase of her career and I see a classic Trojan 00:04:07.110 --> 00:04:10.650 horse scenario. Well, she wasn't just doing marketing. 00:04:10.750 --> 00:04:13.969 She was essentially casing the joint. She was 00:04:13.969 --> 00:04:16.990 getting paid by the studios to study the exact 00:04:16.990 --> 00:04:19.910 machinery of Hollywood distribution and audience 00:04:19.910 --> 00:04:22.829 building. She's learning how the castle operates 00:04:22.829 --> 00:04:25.279 from the inside. you know, where the guards are, 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:27.680 where the vaults are, long before she ever tries 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:29.680 to conquer it. That's a great way to look at 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:32.040 it because she started seeing the blind spots 00:04:32.040 --> 00:04:34.279 in the studio's marketing strategies. Especially 00:04:34.279 --> 00:04:36.660 when it came to reaching black audiences. Exactly. 00:04:36.800 --> 00:04:40.600 So in 2003, she created the Urban Beauty Collective. 00:04:40.899 --> 00:04:43.000 How did that actually work? Like, what was the 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:46.100 mechanism there? It was incredibly smart grassroots 00:04:46.100 --> 00:04:48.970 marketing. The Urban Beauty Collective was a 00:04:48.970 --> 00:04:52.490 promotional network of over 10 ,000 African -American 00:04:52.490 --> 00:04:55.149 beauty salons and barber shops across the country. 00:04:55.629 --> 00:04:58.610 10 ,000? Yeah. Her agency would mail them a free 00:04:58.610 --> 00:05:02.209 monthly promotional program called UBC TV. It 00:05:02.209 --> 00:05:05.069 was basically an Access Hollywood -style entertainment 00:05:05.069 --> 00:05:07.810 show that played on the TVs in these shops. That 00:05:07.810 --> 00:05:10.240 is brilliant. Isn't it? She figured out that 00:05:10.240 --> 00:05:12.920 if you want to reach a specific community, you 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:15.660 don't just buy a generic billboard on a highway 00:05:15.660 --> 00:05:18.620 and hope for the best. You put your content directly 00:05:18.620 --> 00:05:20.959 into the spaces where that community actually 00:05:20.959 --> 00:05:24.959 gathers, sits and talks for hours. She built 00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:27.040 a direct -to -consumer distribution network. 00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:29.819 Precisely. And if we connect this to the bigger 00:05:29.819 --> 00:05:32.639 picture of independent film, most filmmakers, 00:05:32.639 --> 00:05:35.519 they start entirely with the art. Right. They 00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:37.720 scrape together money, they make a movie, and 00:05:37.720 --> 00:05:39.980 then they sit there with a finished DVD and have 00:05:39.980 --> 00:05:42.300 absolutely no idea how to sell it, or who their 00:05:42.300 --> 00:05:44.199 audience even is. They just hope someone buys 00:05:44.199 --> 00:05:46.579 it at a festival. Exactly. They fundamentally 00:05:46.579 --> 00:05:49.699 struggle with the business of film. But DuVernay 00:05:49.699 --> 00:05:52.160 mastered the mechanics of audience engagement 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:55.379 first. That means when she finally decided she 00:05:55.379 --> 00:05:58.100 had a story to tell, she already knew exactly 00:05:58.100 --> 00:05:59.860 how to find the people who wanted to hear it. 00:05:59.899 --> 00:06:01.620 Which brings us to the moment she actually steps 00:06:01.620 --> 00:06:04.100 behind the camera. It's the Christmas holiday 00:06:04.100 --> 00:06:08.399 in 2005. She takes $6 ,000 of her own money and 00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:11.319 makes her first short film, a 12 minute project 00:06:11.319 --> 00:06:14.779 called Saturday Night Life, which was based on 00:06:14.779 --> 00:06:17.040 her mother's experiences as a struggling single 00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:19.980 mom in Los Angeles. And she explicitly noted 00:06:19.980 --> 00:06:22.610 in the sources that she chose to start. with 00:06:22.610 --> 00:06:25.670 short films and documentaries simply because 00:06:25.670 --> 00:06:27.290 they could be done on a micro budget. Because 00:06:27.290 --> 00:06:29.370 she didn't have millions of dollars. Exactly. 00:06:29.430 --> 00:06:31.529 She didn't have the luxury of going to a prestigious 00:06:31.529 --> 00:06:33.910 film school. This was her film school. She was 00:06:33.910 --> 00:06:36.410 learning the technical trade of directing while 00:06:36.410 --> 00:06:39.069 actually doing it. She didn't wait for a studio 00:06:39.069 --> 00:06:41.850 executive to give her permission to create. OK, 00:06:41.850 --> 00:06:43.949 so she uses short films to learn how to direct. 00:06:44.170 --> 00:06:46.110 But how does she make the leap to a full length 00:06:46.110 --> 00:06:48.350 feature? Because having a marketing background 00:06:48.350 --> 00:06:50.589 is great, but proving to the industry that a 00:06:50.589 --> 00:06:53.000 lack of funding doesn't equal a lack of artistic 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:56.180 vision, that is a massive hurdle. It really is. 00:06:56.579 --> 00:06:59.980 And she does it by applying that exact same relentless 00:06:59.980 --> 00:07:03.040 constraint to her first narrative feature, I 00:07:03.040 --> 00:07:06.319 Will Follow, which came out in 2011. And the 00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:07.980 production numbers on this are almost hard to 00:07:07.980 --> 00:07:10.399 believe. What were the numbers? Like, how much 00:07:10.399 --> 00:07:13.379 does a debut indie feature actually cost to get 00:07:13.379 --> 00:07:17.399 off the ground? It costs just $50 ,000. $50 ,000. 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:20.689 Yes. and she shot the entire thing in 14 days. 00:07:21.069 --> 00:07:24.050 $50 ,000. That is barely the catering budget 00:07:24.050 --> 00:07:26.490 on a Marvel movie. Right. How do you even make 00:07:26.490 --> 00:07:28.790 a watchable film in two weeks for that amount 00:07:28.790 --> 00:07:32.009 of money? By making it deeply, intimately personal, 00:07:32.329 --> 00:07:35.810 so that the emotional resonance outshines the 00:07:35.810 --> 00:07:39.069 lack of glossy production value. The film was 00:07:39.069 --> 00:07:41.329 inspired by her experience as a caregiver for 00:07:41.329 --> 00:07:44.290 her aunt, Denise Sexton, who bravely battled 00:07:44.290 --> 00:07:47.660 stage four breast cancer. And the emotion translated 00:07:47.660 --> 00:07:50.959 perfectly on screen. The legendary film critic 00:07:50.959 --> 00:07:53.420 Roger Ebert reviewed it and called it one of 00:07:53.420 --> 00:07:55.879 the best films he ever seen about coming to terms 00:07:55.879 --> 00:07:57.920 with the death of a loved one. To get an endorsement 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:00.439 from Roger Ebert on a $50 ,000 movie you shot 00:08:00.439 --> 00:08:02.439 in two weeks, that is the kind of validation 00:08:02.439 --> 00:08:05.560 you literally cannot buy. Absolutely. And because 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:07.779 she proved she could execute at that level, she 00:08:07.779 --> 00:08:10.379 was able to level up for her next project. Right. 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:14.079 She followed that up in 2012 with Middle of Nowhere. 00:08:14.279 --> 00:08:16.519 Now, she had actually written this script way 00:08:16.519 --> 00:08:19.060 back in 2003, but originally couldn't get the 00:08:19.060 --> 00:08:21.639 financing for it. And it drew heavily on her 00:08:21.639 --> 00:08:24.199 experiences growing up in Compton and Inglewood, 00:08:24.899 --> 00:08:28.600 but it focused on a very specific, often invisible 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:31.939 demographic, the wives and families of incarcerated 00:08:31.939 --> 00:08:34.440 men. Yeah, it explored how the burden of the 00:08:34.440 --> 00:08:36.860 prison system falls so heavily on women of color 00:08:36.860 --> 00:08:39.440 left on the outside. And this is the film that 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:42.120 takes her to the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. 00:08:42.320 --> 00:08:44.720 It plays in the U .S. dramatic competition, and 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:46.700 she wins the directing award. Which made her 00:08:46.700 --> 00:08:49.139 the first black woman in history to ever win 00:08:49.139 --> 00:08:51.779 that specific prize. It was a monumental shift 00:08:51.779 --> 00:08:53.919 in her career trajectory. Okay, but I have to 00:08:53.919 --> 00:08:55.940 ask a skeptical question here. Go for it. It's 00:08:55.940 --> 00:08:58.080 a great story, but let's be real about how the 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:00.820 industry works. Sundance receives thousands upon 00:09:00.820 --> 00:09:03.120 thousands of submissions every single year. You 00:09:03.120 --> 00:09:04.799 don't just win the top directing award because 00:09:04.799 --> 00:09:07.259 you're good at grassroots PR. Right. Are the 00:09:07.259 --> 00:09:09.620 sources saying she's a marketing genius who gamed 00:09:09.620 --> 00:09:12.740 the festival or a generational filmmaking talent? 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:15.600 What's fascinating here is that the sources suggest 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:19.320 the two simply cannot be separated. Really? Yeah. 00:09:19.820 --> 00:09:23.159 Her PR skills couldn't save a bad movie. The 00:09:23.159 --> 00:09:26.419 art fundamentally has to be there. And clearly, 00:09:26.820 --> 00:09:28.960 taking home the directing award proved the artistic 00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:31.919 merit was undeniable. Right. But her artistic 00:09:31.919 --> 00:09:35.059 talent was amplified by her absolute refusal 00:09:35.059 --> 00:09:38.460 to wait for permission. She explicitly stated 00:09:38.460 --> 00:09:40.440 that she knew Hollywood wasn't going to knock 00:09:40.440 --> 00:09:42.799 down her door to give a black woman money to 00:09:42.799 --> 00:09:46.220 make a drama. She understood the systemic barriers. 00:09:46.460 --> 00:09:48.700 So what did she do? She just self -financed, 00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:51.039 she learned the festival circuit inside and out, 00:09:51.399 --> 00:09:54.259 and she utilized her own marketing savvy to ensure 00:09:54.259 --> 00:09:56.940 that when her art finally played, the right critics 00:09:56.940 --> 00:09:58.919 of executives were sitting in those folding chairs. 00:09:59.159 --> 00:10:01.080 She basically built her own door and then she 00:10:01.080 --> 00:10:03.100 walked through it. Exactly. And walking through 00:10:03.100 --> 00:10:05.179 that door is what leads her straight into her 00:10:05.179 --> 00:10:07.179 studio breakthrough. Because once you prove you 00:10:07.179 --> 00:10:09.340 can stretch a micro budget and win Sundance, 00:10:09.679 --> 00:10:12.379 major studios suddenly realize you are a low 00:10:12.379 --> 00:10:15.759 risk, high reward bet. Which perfectly explains 00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:18.299 how she ends up stepping into the massive 20 00:10:18.299 --> 00:10:21.600 million dollar historical drama Selma. Exactly. 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:25.639 Selma, which was released in 2014 with a massive 00:10:25.639 --> 00:10:28.870 step up in scale. It's a sweeping film. about 00:10:28.870 --> 00:10:31.570 Martin Luther King Jr., President Lyndon B. Johnson, 00:10:31.970 --> 00:10:35.409 and the 1965 voting rights marches. Right. But 00:10:35.409 --> 00:10:37.470 what's incredible about this transition is that 00:10:37.470 --> 00:10:40.169 she was actually the seventh person asked to 00:10:40.169 --> 00:10:43.350 direct this project. The seventh? Six other directors 00:10:43.350 --> 00:10:46.029 passed on this before it got to her. Yes. The 00:10:46.029 --> 00:10:47.649 project had been lingering in development hell. 00:10:47.820 --> 00:10:50.860 But she takes the job, and she doesn't just quietly 00:10:50.860 --> 00:10:52.919 sit in the director's chair and yell action on 00:10:52.919 --> 00:10:55.179 someone else's vision. She essentially hacks 00:10:55.179 --> 00:10:58.460 the script. In what way? She made extensive uncredited 00:10:58.460 --> 00:11:01.019 rewrites to most of Paul Webb's original screenplay. 00:11:01.179 --> 00:11:03.320 Wait, why uncredited? If she's rewriting the 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:05.259 movie, why not take the writer's credit? Well, 00:11:05.340 --> 00:11:07.559 she later called letting Webb take the sole credit 00:11:07.559 --> 00:11:10.570 the biggest mistake of her career. But her primary 00:11:10.570 --> 00:11:12.710 goal at the time wasn't about the credit. It 00:11:12.710 --> 00:11:14.769 was about fundamentally shifting the focus of 00:11:14.769 --> 00:11:16.850 the narrative. Shifting it how? The original 00:11:16.850 --> 00:11:20.549 drafts leaned heavily on LBJ's perspective. Duvernay 00:11:20.549 --> 00:11:23.570 wanted to emphasize King and the actual grassroots 00:11:23.570 --> 00:11:26.590 people of Selma as the central active figures 00:11:26.590 --> 00:11:28.730 of their own civil rights movement. And she faced 00:11:28.730 --> 00:11:30.490 some intense pushback for that, right? I mean, 00:11:30.610 --> 00:11:32.850 the sources mentioned criticism from some historians 00:11:32.850 --> 00:11:34.809 and media figures who claimed she was rewriting 00:11:34.809 --> 00:11:37.710 history for her own agenda. She did face backlash, 00:11:37.950 --> 00:11:41.100 yeah. And her response to that criticism is so 00:11:41.100 --> 00:11:43.360 revealing of her philosophy. What did she say? 00:11:43.500 --> 00:11:46.799 She stated plainly, I'm not a documentary. I'm 00:11:46.799 --> 00:11:51.200 not a historian. I'm a storyteller. She is fiercely 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:53.820 protective of the narrative arc. Wow. And ultimately, 00:11:54.200 --> 00:11:56.139 the results of her vision speak for themselves. 00:11:56.820 --> 00:11:58.919 The film earned an Oscar nomination for Best 00:11:58.919 --> 00:12:01.740 Picture and one for Best Original Song with the 00:12:01.740 --> 00:12:04.700 track Glory. Plus, it made her the first African 00:12:04.700 --> 00:12:06.899 -American woman to ever be nominated for a Golden 00:12:06.899 --> 00:12:09.960 Globe for Best Director. It catapulted her straight 00:12:09.960 --> 00:12:12.100 onto the Hollywood A -list. And usually when 00:12:12.100 --> 00:12:14.379 an indie director has a massive prestige hit 00:12:14.379 --> 00:12:17.000 like that, the major studios immediately try 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:19.779 to lock them into massive IP -driven franchise 00:12:19.779 --> 00:12:22.519 property. Right, the franchise machine. And right 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:25.539 on cue, Marvel came calling. They approached 00:12:25.539 --> 00:12:28.500 her to direct Black Panther, which in modern 00:12:28.500 --> 00:12:30.700 Hollywood is basically being handed the golden 00:12:30.700 --> 00:12:33.500 ticket. Yep. But she turned it down. She did. 00:12:33.789 --> 00:12:37.169 The sources explicitly state she passed because 00:12:37.169 --> 00:12:39.330 she and Marvel had different ideas about what 00:12:39.330 --> 00:12:42.110 the story would be. It takes incredible guts 00:12:42.110 --> 00:12:44.809 to look at the Marvel machine right after your 00:12:44.809 --> 00:12:48.389 big break and say no thanks. Is saying no her 00:12:48.389 --> 00:12:50.850 actual superpower in this phase of her career? 00:12:51.289 --> 00:12:54.169 Absolutely. By saying no to Black Panther, she 00:12:54.169 --> 00:12:56.889 preserved her creative autonomy. She loves the 00:12:56.889 --> 00:12:59.450 character and she wished them well, but she realized 00:12:59.450 --> 00:13:02.110 that entering the Marvel machine meant executing 00:13:02.110 --> 00:13:04.269 a corporate established vision. They definitely 00:13:04.269 --> 00:13:07.029 have a formula. They do, and she protects her 00:13:07.029 --> 00:13:09.490 own vision fiercely. We saw it when she fought 00:13:09.490 --> 00:13:11.730 to shift the narrative focus on Selma, and we 00:13:11.730 --> 00:13:13.669 see it in her willingness to walk away from a 00:13:13.669 --> 00:13:16.009 guaranteed global blockbuster because she knew 00:13:16.009 --> 00:13:18.490 it would require her to compromise her specific 00:13:18.490 --> 00:13:20.960 storytelling goals. Here's where it gets really 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:22.980 interesting for me. Because she didn't just use 00:13:22.980 --> 00:13:25.279 her newfound Selma clout to retreat and make 00:13:25.279 --> 00:13:27.879 a bunch of safe mid -budget historical dramas, 00:13:28.480 --> 00:13:31.399 she decides to wildly expand her attack surface. 00:13:31.480 --> 00:13:34.120 She starts jumping across completely different 00:13:34.120 --> 00:13:36.419 formats and platforms, proving she can't be put 00:13:36.419 --> 00:13:38.919 into a single box. Let's look at what she does 00:13:38.919 --> 00:13:43.379 next. In 2016, she drops 13th on Netflix. A truly 00:13:43.379 --> 00:13:46.360 staggering documentary. It explores the 13th 00:13:46.360 --> 00:13:49.379 Amendment and the deep history of racial inequality 00:13:49.379 --> 00:13:51.460 in the United States criminal justice system. 00:13:51.539 --> 00:13:54.720 Yeah. And she anchors the entire film around 00:13:54.720 --> 00:13:58.909 a brutal opening statistic. The U .S. holds 25 00:13:58.909 --> 00:14:01.690 % of the world's incarcerated population. That 00:14:01.690 --> 00:14:04.330 number is just chilling. And the critical response 00:14:04.330 --> 00:14:06.909 was overwhelming. It won a Peabody Award and 00:14:06.909 --> 00:14:09.649 a DuPont Award. And for listeners who might not 00:14:09.649 --> 00:14:12.190 follow the journalism award circuit, the Peabody 00:14:12.190 --> 00:14:14.769 and the DuPont are essentially the absolute pinnacle 00:14:14.769 --> 00:14:17.409 of broadcast and documentary prestige there, 00:14:17.610 --> 00:14:20.070 like winning the Pulitzer Prize for video. Exactly. 00:14:20.330 --> 00:14:22.429 Plus, it made her the first black woman ever 00:14:22.429 --> 00:14:24.970 nominated for an Academy Award for a documentary 00:14:24.970 --> 00:14:27.679 feature. So she conquers the documentary space. 00:14:28.039 --> 00:14:31.700 And then, in a massive pivot, she signs on to 00:14:31.700 --> 00:14:34.139 direct a hundred million dollar Disney live action 00:14:34.139 --> 00:14:37.139 fantasy. A wrinkle in time, right? In 2018? Yes. 00:14:37.519 --> 00:14:40.240 This is another historic milestone. She becomes 00:14:40.240 --> 00:14:42.519 the first African -American woman to direct a 00:14:42.519 --> 00:14:45.240 live action film with a budget over a hundred 00:14:45.240 --> 00:14:47.279 million dollars. Now, we have to look at the 00:14:47.279 --> 00:14:49.759 data honestly here. As much as she was riding 00:14:49.759 --> 00:14:53.899 a whale of success, A wrinkle in time was a massive 00:14:53.899 --> 00:14:57.039 box office bomb. It was. The sources report it 00:14:57.039 --> 00:15:00.919 took a loss of over $130 million. And the reviews 00:15:00.919 --> 00:15:03.460 were very mixed. Critics took issue with the 00:15:03.460 --> 00:15:06.179 heavy use of CGI and the narrative pacing, even 00:15:06.179 --> 00:15:08.840 though many praised its core message of female 00:15:08.840 --> 00:15:11.559 empowerment and its highly diverse cast. It was 00:15:11.559 --> 00:15:14.799 undeniably a financial failure. But the mechanism 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:17.240 of what she achieved here is crucial to understand. 00:15:17.340 --> 00:15:19.779 How do you mean? In Hollywood, white male directors 00:15:19.779 --> 00:15:22.639 are frequently given the keys to massive blockbusters, 00:15:23.059 --> 00:15:25.879 fail financially, and are immediately hired to 00:15:25.879 --> 00:15:28.259 direct another one. The system affords them the 00:15:28.259 --> 00:15:30.200 grace to fail. That's a really good point. For 00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:32.820 DuVernay, simply gaining access to that $100 00:15:32.820 --> 00:15:35.950 million budget was a structural milestone. Her 00:15:35.950 --> 00:15:39.230 entire filmography, jumping from $50 ,000 Indies 00:15:39.230 --> 00:15:42.330 to sweeping documentaries to Disney fantasies, 00:15:42.570 --> 00:15:45.090 represents a persistent dismantling of the industry 00:15:45.090 --> 00:15:47.590 assumption that black female directors can only 00:15:47.590 --> 00:15:50.450 be trusted to tell small niche stories. And she 00:15:50.450 --> 00:15:53.009 proves that resilience immediately because the 00:15:53.009 --> 00:15:56.789 very next year in 2019, she releases When They 00:15:56.789 --> 00:15:59.110 See Us on Netflix. Oh, that was huge. This is 00:15:59.110 --> 00:16:02.149 a gripping, multi -part, limited series about 00:16:02.149 --> 00:16:04.990 the Central Park Five. And it absolutely stops 00:16:04.990 --> 00:16:07.529 the culture in its tracks. It receives universal 00:16:07.529 --> 00:16:10.429 acclaim, pulls in 16 Emmy nominations and gets 00:16:10.429 --> 00:16:13.389 23 million viewers in its first month. And she 00:16:13.389 --> 00:16:15.570 keeps pushing the boundaries of scale and prestige. 00:16:16.269 --> 00:16:18.590 By 2023, she's writing and directing Origin. 00:16:18.700 --> 00:16:21.159 which is an incredibly ambitious adaptation of 00:16:21.159 --> 00:16:23.620 Isabel Wilkerson's dense historical book gasp. 00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:26.379 With origin, she makes history yet again, becoming 00:16:26.379 --> 00:16:28.440 the first African -American woman to compete 00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:30.320 for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. 00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:32.799 And just for context, competing for the Golden 00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:35.340 Lion at Venice is essentially the international 00:16:35.340 --> 00:16:37.559 art house equivalent of being nominated for Best 00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:40.379 Picture at the Oscars. It is the highest tier 00:16:40.379 --> 00:16:43.519 of global cinema prestige. It really is. But 00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:45.840 as we look at this final section of our source 00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:48.659 material, something really important clicks into 00:16:48.659 --> 00:16:51.620 place. She realized that hacking the system and 00:16:51.620 --> 00:16:54.539 getting herself to the top wasn't enough. If 00:16:54.539 --> 00:16:57.320 she wanted lasting change, she had to build a 00:16:57.320 --> 00:16:59.840 completely new supply chain for everyone else. 00:17:00.480 --> 00:17:02.279 Let's talk about the infrastructure she built. 00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:05.079 Okay, so going all the way back to 2010, right 00:17:05.079 --> 00:17:06.640 around the time she was scraping together the 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:10.640 money for her first feature, she founded AFFRM, 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:13.359 which stands for the African American Film Festival 00:17:13.359 --> 00:17:17.019 Releasing Movement. It later rebranded as ARRE. 00:17:17.390 --> 00:17:20.170 This is an independent distribution company specifically 00:17:20.170 --> 00:17:23.029 designed to acquire and release films made by 00:17:23.029 --> 00:17:26.130 or focusing on black people, and it later expanded 00:17:26.130 --> 00:17:28.869 to champion women filmmakers of all kinds. So 00:17:28.869 --> 00:17:30.809 instead of just making a movie and begging a 00:17:30.809 --> 00:17:33.289 traditional studio to put it in theaters, Array 00:17:33.289 --> 00:17:35.630 acts as its own delivery truck. She takes the 00:17:35.630 --> 00:17:39.069 film straight to the consumer. Exactly. She bypasses 00:17:39.069 --> 00:17:42.099 the traditional gatekeepers entirely. She doesn't 00:17:42.099 --> 00:17:45.240 even refer to array as a business. She calls 00:17:45.240 --> 00:17:47.859 it a call to action. Wow. She understood that 00:17:47.859 --> 00:17:50.519 creating the art is only half the battle. If 00:17:50.519 --> 00:17:53.039 the distribution channels the actual pipelines 00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:55.619 to the audience, remain closed off to creators 00:17:55.619 --> 00:17:58.759 of color, the culture never changes. And her 00:17:58.759 --> 00:18:00.839 impact on the culture has actually changed the 00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:03.460 fundamental way critics watch and evaluate films. 00:18:04.119 --> 00:18:06.000 Film critics literally coined something called 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:08.940 the Duvernay Test. It's similar to the famous 00:18:08.940 --> 00:18:11.660 Bettel Test, which asks if two women in a movie 00:18:11.660 --> 00:18:13.380 talk to each other about something other than 00:18:13.380 --> 00:18:16.160 a man. But the Duvernay Test focuses on race. 00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:18.960 It asks whether minorities in a film have fully 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:21.700 realized complex lives, rather than just serving 00:18:21.700 --> 00:18:24.140 as background scenery or props in white stories. 00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:26.400 And honestly, once you know the Duvernay Test 00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:29.390 exists, completely changes how you, the listener, 00:18:29.609 --> 00:18:32.069 will watch movies tonight. You immediately start 00:18:32.069 --> 00:18:34.289 noticing who is actually driving the narrative 00:18:34.289 --> 00:18:36.849 and who is just there for decoration. Which raises 00:18:36.849 --> 00:18:39.009 an incredibly profound question about what her 00:18:39.009 --> 00:18:41.410 ultimate legacy in this industry will be. What 00:18:41.410 --> 00:18:43.289 do you think it will be? It might not just be 00:18:43.289 --> 00:18:45.130 the award -winning films she directs herself. 00:18:45.730 --> 00:18:48.210 Her legacy will likely be defined by the films 00:18:48.210 --> 00:18:51.029 that her infrastructure, her distribution company, 00:18:51.369 --> 00:18:54.150 and her relentless advocacy allow others to make. 00:18:54.329 --> 00:18:57.349 She views cinema not just as entertainment, but 00:18:57.349 --> 00:18:59.690 as an organizing principle for broader activism. 00:18:59.869 --> 00:19:02.049 And that activism doesn't stop at the edge of 00:19:02.049 --> 00:19:04.980 a movie set. Looking at the sources from 2024 00:19:04.980 --> 00:19:08.660 and 2025, her advocacy spans a highly charged 00:19:08.660 --> 00:19:11.319 political spectrum. It does. Now, whether listeners 00:19:11.319 --> 00:19:13.359 agree with these specific stances or not, what 00:19:13.359 --> 00:19:15.559 the source material makes absolutely clear is 00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:17.880 that she does not separate her art from her political 00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:20.700 convictions. She uses her platform constantly. 00:19:20.880 --> 00:19:23.599 She does. The text notes several specific recent 00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:27.299 examples of this. At the 2024 Academy Awards, 00:19:27.779 --> 00:19:30.519 she wore an Artist's Force Ceasefire badge. which 00:19:30.519 --> 00:19:32.519 was part of a campaign calling for an immediate 00:19:32.519 --> 00:19:34.680 and permanent ceasefire during the Gaza War. 00:19:35.099 --> 00:19:38.299 And following that, in September 2025, she signed 00:19:38.299 --> 00:19:41.400 an open pledge with an organization called Film 00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:44.990 Workers for Palestine. signatories there pledged 00:19:44.990 --> 00:19:47.609 not to work with Israeli film institutions that 00:19:47.609 --> 00:19:49.490 the group claims are implicated in genocide and 00:19:49.490 --> 00:19:51.190 apartheid against the Palestinian people. And 00:19:51.190 --> 00:19:54.349 she's equally vocal on domestic political issues. 00:19:54.690 --> 00:19:57.250 The source material also notes that in 2025, 00:19:57.730 --> 00:20:00.190 she participated in a major event called the 00:20:00.190 --> 00:20:03.490 Fall of Freedom. Right. This was a platform organized 00:20:03.490 --> 00:20:06.750 for visual artists specifically designed to loudly 00:20:06.750 --> 00:20:09.289 criticize cuts to the arts made by the second 00:20:09.289 --> 00:20:12.170 Trump administration. She makes no effort to 00:20:12.170 --> 00:20:14.849 build a safe neutral corporate public persona. 00:20:15.230 --> 00:20:18.009 Because for her, the art she directs, the business 00:20:18.009 --> 00:20:20.430 infrastructure she builds with R .A., and the 00:20:20.430 --> 00:20:22.650 political stances she takes in public are all 00:20:22.650 --> 00:20:24.990 deeply intertwined. They all feed into each other. 00:20:25.150 --> 00:20:27.109 Exactly. They are all just different levers she 00:20:27.109 --> 00:20:28.910 is pulling to shape the narrative and challenge 00:20:28.910 --> 00:20:31.289 established power structures. Whether she's fighting 00:20:31.289 --> 00:20:34.029 a Hollywood studio over script credit or lending 00:20:34.029 --> 00:20:36.750 her name to a global political movement, the 00:20:36.750 --> 00:20:39.569 underlying mechanism is the same. She refuses 00:20:39.569 --> 00:20:41.980 to let someone else dictate the story. It's just 00:20:41.980 --> 00:20:45.480 an incredibly sweeping cinematic arc in its own 00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:48.279 right. Let's quickly recap this heist we've been 00:20:48.279 --> 00:20:50.380 tracking. Let's do it. We're talking about a 00:20:50.380 --> 00:20:53.720 woman who started as a publicist running marketing 00:20:53.720 --> 00:20:56.299 campaigns for other people's billion dollar movies. 00:20:56.500 --> 00:20:58.920 She studied the security systems of the industry. 00:20:59.200 --> 00:21:01.299 She didn't pick up a camera until she was 32. 00:21:01.980 --> 00:21:04.900 She self -financed a six thousand dollar short 00:21:04.900 --> 00:21:07.900 film. And from there, she relentlessly hustled 00:21:07.900 --> 00:21:10.799 her way to becoming a history making, multi award 00:21:10.799 --> 00:21:13.420 winning director who tackles the prison industrial 00:21:13.420 --> 00:21:16.559 complex, historical civil rights icons and massive 00:21:16.559 --> 00:21:20.039 Disney blockbusters. building her own distribution 00:21:20.039 --> 00:21:22.420 supply chain to hold the door open for the next 00:21:22.420 --> 00:21:25.039 generation of filmmakers. It's a testament to 00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:27.500 the sheer power of not waiting for an invitation. 00:21:28.259 --> 00:21:30.039 She recognized early on that the traditional 00:21:30.039 --> 00:21:32.519 system wasn't built for her to succeed. So instead 00:21:32.519 --> 00:21:34.500 of knocking on the door and asking nicely, she 00:21:34.500 --> 00:21:36.319 used the marketing and PR skills she acquired 00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:38.920 in her everyday day job to completely dismantle 00:21:38.920 --> 00:21:42.119 the door and build her own house. And that right 00:21:42.119 --> 00:21:44.240 there is exactly what I want you to take away 00:21:44.240 --> 00:21:47.109 from this deep dive. Ava DuVernay didn't look 00:21:47.109 --> 00:21:50.029 at her PR career as wasted time before she finally 00:21:50.029 --> 00:21:52.609 became a director. She used those exact skills 00:21:52.609 --> 00:21:55.049 as her secret weapon to bypass the gatekeepers. 00:21:55.569 --> 00:21:57.329 So I want to leave you with this final thought 00:21:57.329 --> 00:22:00.869 to mull over today. If Ava DuVernay could completely 00:22:00.869 --> 00:22:02.910 rewrite the rules of Hollywood starting at age 00:22:02.910 --> 00:22:06.210 32, not by abandoning her past, but by weaponizing 00:22:06.210 --> 00:22:08.470 the skills she learned at her day job, wait, 00:22:08.750 --> 00:22:10.589 what hidden skills from your own past are you 00:22:10.589 --> 00:22:12.730 ignoring right now that could be the exact key 00:22:12.730 --> 00:22:13.869 to unlocking your future?