Ava DuVernay began her career as a publicist in the studio system, marketing big budget films like Invictus, Collateral and The Help. It was on the set of Collateral that DuVernay realized she had her own story to tell, and that if she didn't tell it, then no one would. Her first full-length feature, I Will Follow, and her latest, Middle of Nowhere, which won her Best Director at 2012 Sundance, deal with the singular (and rarely seen) perspective of a black woman going through loss, dealing with a difficult relationship, and questioning herself... complex, human problems that we all experience, and that aren't always easily resolved. DuVernay has also taken the distribution into her own hands, by starting her own distribution company, the African American Film Festival Releasing Movement. With AAFFRM, she is creating a space for her own work and that of her contemporaries. By making black independent film more accessible to everyone, DuVernay is cultivating an entirely new type of audience -- and she's just getting started.
