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As a black woman trying to make a name for herself as a writer, movie writer and entrepreneur I look for people in this profession (especially black women) to motivate me to continue on this journey. Hopefully I will eventually become that role model young girls can look up to as well. In the meantime I will proudly showcase women who are stamping their mark on the world. And here is one of those sistahs making massive moves.
Last month the Sundance Film Festival took place. Many movie writers, directors and the like all were debuting their movies they have created in hopes of getting the attention of producers and media companies. African American filmmaker up and coming mogul, glass ceiling breaker Ave DuVernay became the first black women to win the U.S. Directing Award: Dramatic. The film Middle of Nowhere follows a woman struggling to maintain her identity while her husband is serving an eight year bid. Not only has she won for the movie but that it has been picked up by Participant Media and it will officially debut later this year.
Ms. DuVernay also have won the Audience Award for Toronto, LA and Seattle. She has directed 3 music documentaries: My Mic Sounds Nice, Essence Music Festival and Faith Through The Storm. She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and is the founder of AFFRM. Its purpose is to “empower ourselves by distributing our own images…” and “to organize ourselves into a releasing entity and support black cinema in a very specific way by offering a handful of black indies a theatrical release.” (via AFFRM.com) Major heavy hitters such as HBO, BET, CodeBlack, MGM, David E. Talbert Presents, America Online and UrbanWorld Films are represented by DuVernay Agency.
All I can say is ‘you go sista!’ I am so proud when I see positive black people achieve great things as though they are my kids (I’m not that old to be this girl’s mama hell she might be older than me, who knows). It’s my mission to uplift people especially my african american sistas. So please support me and all positive brothas and sistas doing the damn thang! Eventually I want our positive images to outweigh the negative we are conditioned to see on the regular.
Peace and luv!
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