Currently Browsing: Ava DuVernay
Happy Black History Month 2025:
To celebrate, we are reposting some of our favorite Black Swans = names & faces everyone should know!
While Lily Gladstone and Greta Gerwig’s Oscar snubs this year have been widely discussed, there is one important film that sorely lacked representation at the Oscars, and in the cultural conversation at large: Ava DuVernay’s Origin.… read more.
On a mild Sunday night in February I had the honor to sit down on Zoom with Mary Anne Knefel from our respective Brooklyn homes to discuss Ava DuVernay’s masterpiece film, Origin. Currently screening at select movie theaters, the film follows the epic research project of journalist and author, Isabel Wilkerson as she attempts to find the epistemological link between the treatment of Black people in the USA, Dalit people in India, and Jewish people in Nazi Germany.… read more.
Henrene Taylor was born in Mississippi to a Black woman and a white man in 1942, during the Jim Crow era. Due to the times, she and her siblings would call him dad in private. But, in public, they’d have to call him by his last name to not arouse suspicion that these children were his. Henrene was very fair-skinned with brown curly hair.… read more.
Jennifer Lopez is on a roll with her second film this year, The Mother. The Mother is an action-drama about an unnamed ex-military sniper who must protect her daughter Zoe from the troubles of her past. It is an action-packed, emotional story, with an aura of mystique that keeps the audience anticipating what will happen next.… read more.
Throughout her career, Ava DuVernay has made history as the first Black woman to not only win an award for Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival, but also to direct an Oscar-nominated Best Picture film AND receive a Golden Globe nomination. Today, the groundbreaking filmmaker celebrates her birthday!… read more.
Social Justice Auteur: A Celebration of the Work of Ava DuVernay
By FF2 Intern Julia Lasker
Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker that, in 2020, you need to know. She began creating films in 2010 and since then has become a historic name in the cinematic world. She was the first Black woman to win an award for Best Director at Sundance and to direct an Oscar-nominated Best Picture film.… read more.