If you want to change the world you have to have to strong shoulders. It would never be enough for Ava DuVernay to have made Middle of Nowhere, a film she funded by herself (for around $200,000). She also had to work with her distribution company to get that film into theaters. That proved more difficult than she thought it would. Turns out, the art house crowd is resistant to films about African Americans, made by African American filmmakers. She mentioned this in her Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross. The multiplexes weren’t so resistant because — though we don’t like to admit it — our economy has continued to replenish a kind of forced segregation. This is true about most minorities, actually – films at the art house are for the white community. I found this really astonishing news. So Duvernay’s task was to change that. To nudge the door open a tiny bit by making a path for black audiences to go to the art house.
Isn’t that interesting? That’s perhaps why there is forced segregation in the Oscar race, and why so few black directors are taken seriously enough to be considered for the Oscars. If DuVernay is nominated for an original screenplay Oscar (she is not a WGA member so she won’t get a WGA nod) she will be the first female black auteur to do so.
I guess I never really connected the dots, to realize that art houses were so exclusionary – and not deliberately, of course. That’s just the way things go. Imagine how much more money the smaller independents could make if they could learn how to bridge the gap between the hispanic, black, and asian communities? Instead, we rely on one small group of people from a certain type of community to fund these movies.
Perhaps DuVernay will make a difference.
Have a listen to that Fresh Air interview – it’s quite insightful, not just about the black film community of storytellers, but about how DuVernay grew up in a “family of women” and found her voice. She didn’t like the rules so she changed them. How about that.
Two clips from the film after the cut.
Saw her on CNN this morning. Stunning personality and drive. I immediately locked up her film and found it playing here in Detroit as well as NY and LA and Chicago, Atlanta a bunch of big cities. I was off today so drove to see an afternoon show and was floored. The film is breathtaking and moving and sitting in an AMC amidst trash. No matter. I put her in my google alerts right away in the parking lot and this discussion pops up I just listened to the 40 minutes with Terry Gross and I have to say I’m wildly impressed by this feminist filmmaker. Will she get far in this man’s world of film? I can’t say. But I know she deserves it.
Not playing in Toronto either, even though it played at TIFF. Hope they rectify the situation soon. Saw director Ava DuVernay talk at the Independent Film Forum in Hollywood this weekend. Very interesting story about the production of the film. Very impressive lady!
Shockingly, this movie is not playing in the city of San Francisco… I will have to travel to Berkeley to find the only screen in the entire Bay Area that is showing this film, even though SF has close to 70 screens, nearly half of which are supposedly arthouse/indie-friendly. It doesn’t help that the Chronicle’s only local film critic, the painfully contrarian Mick LaSalle, gave the movie a “meh” review.
I’m seeing this movie next week, it’s playing at a multiplex in an African American community. I’m just so glad I get to see it.
Reading this nonsense made me think of Plainview walking in on Eli’s church sermon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh3VXO4zwXc
This is the kind of stuff that deserves to be championed by the online film community. Thanks Sasha, I’m gonna be on the look out for this one.