Quotes from Ava DuVernay

A black woman making art is a disruptive act. Every story that I tell as a woman is a political act, even if I want to tell a 'silly love story.' The fact it exists through my gaze is radical.

Nonviolence is pretty ballsy, pretty advanced weaponry.

If you walk into a room, and there is no one that's not like you there, whether it's a woman or a person of color, anyone that's different from you, you should be able to say this is a problem. We need allies in that room to say that video, this room, this company, these ideas, this film, this whatever, this is not right - this is not good enough.

My interest as an artist is to illuminate the lives of black folks. I definitely am focused on films that illustrate all that we are and all our nuance and all our complicated beauty and mess, and when you're telling those stories, you gotta have black actors.

I think that if we really want to break it down, that non-black filmmakers have had many, many years and many, many opportunities to tell many, many stories about themselves, and black filmmakers have not had as many years, as many opportunities, as many films to explore the nuances of our reality.

We have to find new ways to work without permission, new ways to turn corners and go through doors that are closed off to us to create our own audiences and our own material independently.

When I'm marketing a film, whether its mine or someone else's, I work with a great deal of strategy and elbow grease until the job is done.

The way that we're consuming what we watch. Netflix, binge-watching, destination agnostic were not terms. It was about networks, times, dates. Even with feature films, you had to see it this way, in this capacity, at this time. All that has changed. Now it's really about the story. It's a gift that I became a storyteller at this time.

We know there needs to be diversity in storytellers telling their own stories. I think there's a beautiful forward movement in that direction with McQueen telling '12 Years A Slave,' with Coogler telling 'Fruitvale,' and with Daniels telling 'The Butler.'

As a filmmaker, you put the film out there, and you just want it to be okay. You don't want to let people down; you don't want to embarrass yourself.

When we're talking about diversity, it's not a box to check. It is a reality that should be deeply felt and held and valued by all of us.

I feel mushy these days when I think about art and artists and the work that lies ahead for us. There's good work to be done and there's joy to be found in it, I think.

Art morphs with what's going on in the world. We say 'Ferguson'; we don't say 'Mike Brown.' Just like we say 'Selma,' not 'Jimmie Lee Jackson.' There is something startling about the people in a particular place, a city or a small town, rising up and taking to the streets.

You see women struggling to keep it all together while a loved one is in jail. But we don't hear about them or their struggles in a way that resonates with others. Their stories are so compelling. It's as if they are in their own little world and no one else sees them.

If you're doing something outside of dominant culture, there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.

It sounds kind of flighty, filmmaker-y, but I believe films are a piece of art. They are meant to be what they're meant to be, and sometimes the artist is informed by the film of what it needs to be.

I know that sounds a little bit corny, but I've found some solace in that. I hope art can continue to do that for people, I really do.

We're told that independent film lovers... folks that are used to watching art house films, won't come out and see a film with black people in it - I've been told that in rooms, big rooms, studio rooms, and I know that's not true.

The studios aren't lining up to make films about black protagonists, black people being autonomous and independent.

All black women aren't sassy, loud, difficult, or subservient. We are, in fact, very complex and very diverse, living very complex and diverse lives. That point cannot be made enough.

If your dream only includes you, it's too small.

I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.

I don't want to say that in a place that's negative about what the fear is. I just want to be a realist.

Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.