There's a belonging problem in Hollywood. Who dictates who belongs? The very body who dictates that looks all one way.
Ava DuvernayRead
Artists should be free to create what we want. I believe there's a special value in work that is a reflection of oneself as opposed to interpretation. When I see a film or a TV show about black people not written by someone who's black, it's an interpretation of that life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Artists should create authentic work that reflects their own experiences and identities.
Ava Duvernay emphasizes the importance of personal authenticity in artistic expression. She suggests that when artists create from their own lived experiences, the work holds a unique value that cannot be replicated through the interpretations of others, especially regarding cultural narratives. This speaks to the broader theme of representation and the significance of diverse voices in storytelling.
Themes
ArtRepresentationAuthenticitySelf-ExpressionCulture
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions at art workshops about the importance of personal narratives in art.
More from Ava Duvernay
All quotes →I just don't think there's a lot of support for the woman's voice in cinema, and it becomes really difficult to raise that money and start again every time.
Ava DuvernayRead
I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.
Ava DuvernayRead
I think for female filmmakers a big issue is making their second and third films.
Ava DuvernayRead
When we say there's a dearth of women directors, it's not that there's a lack of women who direct: it's a lack of opportunities and access for women to direct and be supported in that.
Ava DuvernayRead
I intend to be making films until I'm an old lady. So, if God willing I get there, I need to create a paradigm for myself where I can make it regardless of whether or not they still like what I'm making.
Ava DuvernayRead
Similar quotes
The thing that was important to me about Hemingway at the time was that Hemingway taught me that you could be a writer and get away with it.
Hunter S. ThompsonRead
Fiction writing is a twenty-four-hou r-a-day occupation. You never leave your work behind. It is always with you, and to some extent, you are always thinking about it. You don't take your work home; your work never leaves home. It lives inside you. It resides and grows and comes alive in your mind.
Terry BrooksRead
The history of my life is the history of the struggle between an overwhelming urge to write and a combination of circumstances bent on keeping me from it.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
To direct actors is difficult. To direct actors in another language is more difficult, but directing non-actors in another language is one of the craziest things that I have done and one of the most rewarding experiences I have had.
Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituRead
Visual ideas combined with technology combined with personal interpretation equals photography. Each must hold it's own; if it doesn't, the thing collapses.
Arnold NewmanRead
The writing process for a short story feels more like field geology, where you keep turning the thing over and over, noting its qualities in detail, hammering at it, putting it near flame, pouring different acids on it, and then finally you figure out what it is, or you just give up and mount it on a ring and have an awkward chunky piece of jewelry that seems weirdly dominating but that you for some reason like. I could be wrong about field geology here.
Rivka GalchenRead