Speaker 1: Hello, dear listeners. Brian and I are on the road again.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be on the road again. We're
Speaker 1: in south By Southwest in Austin, Texas, recording some interviews
Speaker 1: for the pod, which will be excited to share with
Speaker 1: you soon. But in the meantime, we didn't want to
Speaker 1: leave you hanging or pining for us, so we decided
Speaker 1: to dip into our archives and revisit one of our
Speaker 1: favorite episodes on the show, and that is our conversation
Speaker 1: with filmmaking powerhouse Ava d Verney. So we originally spoke
Speaker 1: with Ava last summer while she was editing A Wrinkling Time,
Speaker 1: which just hit theaters this month. So for those of
Speaker 1: you who might have missed it the first time around,
Speaker 1: or who wanted an excuse to revisit Ava's brilliance and eloquence,
Speaker 1: this one is for you. Hi Brian, Hi Katie. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about our podcast today. It's a conversation
Speaker 1: with Ava Daverney, who has become so accomplished she's everywhere
Speaker 1: these days. I first met her at the Sundance Film
Speaker 1: Festival a couple of years ago, and she really wasn't
Speaker 1: a household name back then, but I think today she's
Speaker 1: become one. Of course, she's done such critically acclaimed documentaries,
Speaker 1: like she has a show called Queen Sugar, which has
Speaker 1: also gotten a lot of attention, and of course Selma, right, Brian,
Speaker 1: I mean, that was an amazing film. If you care
Speaker 1: about the civil rights movement, or Lyndon Johnson or how
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act was passed, you have to see
Speaker 1: this movie. It became actually very controversial at the time,
Speaker 1: and one of the big controversies around it was why
Speaker 1: Ava was not nominated for Best Director, which we get
Speaker 1: into a little bit in this conversation, and of course
Speaker 1: that omission really helped fuel the Oscars So White campaign,
Speaker 1: which really changed the face literally of the Academy. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we had the privilege of talking to Eva at Disney
Speaker 1: Studios where she was in the middle of a deadline
Speaker 1: for her upcoming movie, A Wrinkle in Time, and we
Speaker 1: covered a lot of ground from her relationship with her
Speaker 1: frequent collaborator, somebody named um Oprah I think is her name.
Speaker 1: You may have heard of her. I think that's how
Speaker 1: you pronounce the official Ava diverne Ay Barbie, and how
Speaker 1: she went from doing pr and publicity to making movies,
Speaker 1: a pretty dramatic career transition. And folks, by the way,
Speaker 1: you know the drill. We left our studio, we ventured
Speaker 1: out into the actual world for this recording, and so
Speaker 1: the audio isn't perfect because we did it in Ava's office,
Speaker 1: So we hope you'll forgive us for that. And in
Speaker 1: Ava's office where she had very good snacks, we might add,
Speaker 1: including those little breadsticks with nutella. She told me to
Speaker 1: help myself. So what can I say? People, I did?
Speaker 1: You taught me the true meaning of asking forgiveness, not
Speaker 1: permission anyway. So here's our conversation with the one and
Speaker 1: only Ava Diverney. I kept thinking about the Alicia Key
Speaker 1: song This girl is on by Oh my God. Woman.
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you for doing our podcast. You're
Speaker 1: doing a million things, so you're my girl. People don't
Speaker 1: know we hang out when we're Yeah, exactly, we've partied together.
Speaker 1: That's your part together. Yeah, well, I'm We first met
Speaker 1: at Sundance and we sat across the table from her.
Speaker 1: I think she probably thought I was super weird at
Speaker 1: the time. Ava, she was obviously doing great things, but
Speaker 1: it was really before a huge development in Ava's career causation.
Speaker 1: We don't know very little to do with it. But
Speaker 1: I was fascinated then by Ava's backstory, which I want
Speaker 1: to get to in a moment, but first we have
Speaker 1: to say mossel mozzle, Ava, because you have been nominated
Speaker 1: for lots o Emmy right for thirteen, eight Emmys, eight
Speaker 1: Emmys for thirteenth. And you know, the great thing about
Speaker 1: it is when it happens, it doesn't feel like you
Speaker 1: thought it would. It feels lovely, but like a cherry
Speaker 1: on top because the main thing was making the piece
Speaker 1: and people loving it and responding to it. So when
Speaker 1: the nominations came in, I was like, oh wow, this
Speaker 1: is lovely. I was more excited for my editor and
Speaker 1: for my my sound mixer who all got nominated and uh.
Speaker 1: And so it just helps me stay focused because I
Speaker 1: just like telling the stories and I like the people's
Speaker 1: reaction because everyone walks up to me about their teeth,
Speaker 1: you know, people walk up, they want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: And so it's been a gift that keeps on giving.
Speaker 1: It's it's still though, must be a nice piece of
Speaker 1: validation for you, right, nice, I just didn't doesn't hit
Speaker 1: the same as I always dreamed it would. You know,
Speaker 1: you think you're you're making the speech in the mirror
Speaker 1: and you it's your brush, is the is the is
Speaker 1: the trophy, you know what I mean, And you think
Speaker 1: it's gonna feel a certain way. It's really nice, but
Speaker 1: isn't everything that I thought it would be. But it
Speaker 1: did feel I think, uh, sort of like a disk.
Speaker 1: When you weren't nominated for Selma for a lot of
Speaker 1: other people, well, I never thought I would be nominated.
Speaker 1: I'm on record a long time before the nomination saying
Speaker 1: it wouldn't want because I don't know anyone in my
Speaker 1: in my in my branch. It's very much about you know,
Speaker 1: I have no connect Cider's Club, Yeah, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know them and they don't know me. And
Speaker 1: so that's a big part of what that is. It's
Speaker 1: just that connection with your peers, and I didn't have
Speaker 1: it at that. Hollywood is just like high school. And
Speaker 1: another little bit as a movie goer, I really resented
Speaker 1: it even if you didn't. Even if it didn't but
Speaker 1: but no, no, really, if I didn't even know you
Speaker 1: and the movie Selma and the fact that um, I
Speaker 1: thought it was a fantastic movie, and I think it
Speaker 1: should have been recognized. But I think this was sort
Speaker 1: of on the cusp of people understanding how undiverse the Oscar.
Speaker 1: It was. The year before this was the that was
Speaker 1: the year that said all that conversation. It helped to
Speaker 1: spur the Oscar. And I think that that was valid
Speaker 1: that came from the fans and uh and it was
Speaker 1: a valid conversation that needed to happen, not just for
Speaker 1: people of color, but for women, which has become a big,
Speaker 1: big conversation now, so they people think it differently about it,
Speaker 1: and so I'm happy that that campaign was effective. Do
Speaker 1: you think it drove real change? It did? I mean
Speaker 1: it was. It was definitely had fundamental changes within the
Speaker 1: Academy in terms of the ways in which new members
Speaker 1: are brought in, in terms of the ways in which
Speaker 1: the conversations that are had around the table. Um. I
Speaker 1: know because I've been sitting in them and I can
Speaker 1: see how they've changed since I joined the Academy in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve to now radically different. Isn't it amazing
Speaker 1: how when people are made aware of an issue, how
Speaker 1: rapidly in some cases change can happen so fast it
Speaker 1: really can what do you think it were the keys
Speaker 1: to to changing sort of the color if you will,
Speaker 1: at the academy and and and the choices they were making.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it was the uproar and the
Speaker 1: outrage and the real urgency that people were feeling at
Speaker 1: the time about this is unacceptable. And it's not as
Speaker 1: if the conversation hadn't happened before. But there was something
Speaker 1: that alchemy about, you know what, whatever was going on
Speaker 1: the culture around that time. Black lives matter, Absolutely there
Speaker 1: was there was at the forefront. There was a conversation,
Speaker 1: whether it be people of color or women, that this
Speaker 1: was no longer something that could be set aside. But
Speaker 1: when you're talking about change, you know, we were talking
Speaker 1: about another conversation we had about um about your your
Speaker 1: dock and your dock work. How quickly I even look
Speaker 1: at the trans community, how quickly. I mean, I can
Speaker 1: think of three years ago, no one even knew how
Speaker 1: to articulate or what it meant or how or had
Speaker 1: a respect for it being a uh, you know, an
Speaker 1: issue that we all had to embrace or a reality
Speaker 1: that we had to embrace or we should embrace. And
Speaker 1: now it feels very you could have a conversation with people,
Speaker 1: and they may not know everything that they should know,
Speaker 1: but there's at least a base of recognition. And that's
Speaker 1: been I mean, what would you say, I'd say to
Speaker 1: three years and being conservative, I think you're right, and
Speaker 1: I think that Caitlyn Jenner did a lot to bring
Speaker 1: it out into the forefront and then that provided I
Speaker 1: think a foundation for a conversation to talk about it
Speaker 1: and then actually paid the way for a documentary like
Speaker 1: that couldn't have happened, I think in a weird way
Speaker 1: without kids, when kind of making more people understand that
Speaker 1: this was an actual phenomenon and that this was something
Speaker 1: that was affecting a lot of people that was being
Speaker 1: kept in the closet. That's a that's a reality for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And before we go further down
Speaker 1: this road, I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: who you are and where you come from. People you
Speaker 1: don't know because you grew up a few miles but
Speaker 1: also a world away from here near Compton, and you've
Speaker 1: talked a lot about this. How how did your childhood
Speaker 1: and background kind of shape the director that you are today.
Speaker 1: Had a beautiful childhood, very you know, lovely community, very
Speaker 1: tight knit, a gorgeous, loving family. UM. But my childhood
Speaker 1: was set in a community that was, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: kind of besieged by l A p D at that time,
Speaker 1: that really used excessive force and instances when it wasn't necessary,
Speaker 1: and instances of everyday life the constant surveyor the police
Speaker 1: presence living under that made it so that I'm hyper
Speaker 1: aware of issues of criminal justice and and and the
Speaker 1: ways in which law enforcement of really um can kind
Speaker 1: of rule with an iron hand in some places. And
Speaker 1: so that that's made its way in my work, from
Speaker 1: the early narrative films to The Docks Now to the
Speaker 1: TV show. Uh, It's just something that's a part of
Speaker 1: my DNA, and so that I just want to continue
Speaker 1: to talk about. Did you have any firsthand experiences they've
Speaker 1: growing up where you know an image has stuck with
Speaker 1: you or an experience has stuck with you. I just
Speaker 1: read a Brian Stevenson Peace and the New York Review
Speaker 1: of Books about he was Did You So Great? And
Speaker 1: I guess that same story about being a young lawyer
Speaker 1: in Atlanta and a racially mixed neighborhood was also in
Speaker 1: his book Just Mercy. You know you and I both
Speaker 1: have a complete crush on Bryani really equal Equal Justice Initiative,
Speaker 1: and my daughter's working for the Southern Poverty Law Center
Speaker 1: exactly exactly we have to connect that. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: mean that experience he described Brian real quickly. He was
Speaker 1: coming home. He was listening to a radio show about
Speaker 1: sliding the family stone. You could just put yourself. He
Speaker 1: was staying in the cars sometimes you do when you're
Speaker 1: you're mesmerized by something on the radio. And Atlanta police
Speaker 1: officer came. Apparently someone had made a call. He was,
Speaker 1: as I said, in a racially mixed neighborhood, basically almost
Speaker 1: you know, killed him. And the fear that he had
Speaker 1: as this Harvard educated lawyer coming back from his firm,
Speaker 1: and I don't know that the scene, he said, was
Speaker 1: so profoundly moving to me, and it really made you
Speaker 1: realize in sharp relief what it was like. What about you, Eva,
Speaker 1: Was there anything for you that made you think this
Speaker 1: is completely screwed up? Many many little things throughout my
Speaker 1: my growing up, but there was one in particular around
Speaker 1: my father recently onto another realm recently departed, and he
Speaker 1: was in his our house watering the lawn in the
Speaker 1: backyard of his own home and police came through the
Speaker 1: side gate and wrestled him to the ground in his
Speaker 1: own backyard. We had to rush out of the house
Speaker 1: UM with no warning, that didn't say anything, no guns
Speaker 1: drawn on us. My mother and and it was me.
Speaker 1: My sisters weren't there. I don't know, maybe maybe eleven
Speaker 1: or twelve, something like bad to see my father such
Speaker 1: a proud, elegant man on the ground, UM with police
Speaker 1: on top of him, guns pointed at us, not knowing
Speaker 1: who we were. And basically in the end they said
Speaker 1: he matched the description of someone who was running through
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. UM, despite the fact that he was saying,
Speaker 1: this is my home. I'm the homeowner in his own backyard.
Speaker 1: Not safe. So those kinds of like I said, excessive
Speaker 1: police force and a disregard for the humanity of people, uh,
Speaker 1: something that I grew up with. It was just a
Speaker 1: part of daily life. When you spoke very eloquently about
Speaker 1: this in the Atlantic, you said you'd see a cop
Speaker 1: growing up and you didn't think safety like your counterpart
Speaker 1: who didn't grow up in Compton. You'd think, oh boy,
Speaker 1: what are they coming for and who are they coming
Speaker 1: for yeah, exactly. So it's be because of instances like that,
Speaker 1: So you know, I find it, it makes its way
Speaker 1: in my work, and at one point I would try
Speaker 1: to push that away. And so I need to really
Speaker 1: engage with Hollywood in the ways that our standard Hollywood.
Speaker 1: But I've just tried to embrace the fact that these
Speaker 1: are the things I'm interested in, and it's okay to
Speaker 1: talk about those things, and whether it's a documentary or
Speaker 1: whether it's like a series like Queen Sugar, you know,
Speaker 1: to be able to find the spaces where I can
Speaker 1: say the things I want to say about these issues
Speaker 1: is okay to do. I read Eva, I learned something
Speaker 1: new about you every day, and I read that you
Speaker 1: actually helped cover the o J trial for ye did?
Speaker 1: How did I not know that? And you became disillusioned
Speaker 1: with journalism. Yeah, I really really wanted to do what
Speaker 1: you do, Okay. I really wanted to be a broadcast journalist.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that was in me for all
Speaker 1: through high school and uh and going through college, that
Speaker 1: was what I wanted to do. And so anyway, I
Speaker 1: got this prestigious internship with the CBS Evening News. This
Speaker 1: isn't the Dan and rather Connie chung Era the small
Speaker 1: window when it was both of them right, almost as
Speaker 1: prestigious as the later Katie Kurrik almost, but it was
Speaker 1: a slim window when there was the two of them.
Speaker 1: And that landed at some point around the trial. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the trial was just starting. I got to sign my
Speaker 1: juror packet. I was assigned to one specific juror, and
Speaker 1: I was like, this is it. It's a few short
Speaker 1: months and I'll be on the air anchoring like this
Speaker 1: is it's all happening for me? And um, And basically
Speaker 1: I was kind of capped out in front of a
Speaker 1: juror's house and um and you know, kind of invited
Speaker 1: to kind of look through her I don't know, trash things,
Speaker 1: mail get a sense of when she came home, who
Speaker 1: was coming, And I just felt like that's not what
Speaker 1: I went to. It was around the time O J.
Speaker 1: Tim I think things the traditional news had to become
Speaker 1: a tad more tabloid e to compete with the new world.
Speaker 1: I think I felt that, and so things were changing
Speaker 1: and I didn't I didn't take to it. Well, I
Speaker 1: wasn't good at it, and I got no trash, no dirt, Noh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well that was a bad assignment and probably not a
Speaker 1: fair representation of the kind of work might have been
Speaker 1: able to do. I wouldn't stuck with it, you know.
Speaker 1: I was just I couldn't see through when you idealize something,
Speaker 1: you know. Even that that brings me back to though,
Speaker 1: the o J trial, and I just want to kind
Speaker 1: of take a left turn for a moment, because I
Speaker 1: was in the hallway when that verdict was announced, and
Speaker 1: I was actually standing near o J's kids. And I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if either of you remember. Of course you
Speaker 1: remember the external outside reaction, but the black and white
Speaker 1: reaction was dramatically but I mean, I know you remember that.
Speaker 1: But in that hallway was a microcosm of sorts of
Speaker 1: this racial divide in this country. And I'm curious what
Speaker 1: you thought about the reaction by the African American community,
Speaker 1: because I have to say I was. I was stunned. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I knew Johnny Cochrane very well and the
Speaker 1: whole defense team. I actually loved Johnny Cochrane, and and
Speaker 1: yet it was pretty clear that o J had committed
Speaker 1: this crime, and the jubilation when he was not convicted,
Speaker 1: when he was acquitted, and the image of this very
Speaker 1: different reaction from black and white America is still somewhat
Speaker 1: hard for me, less hard for me to understand given
Speaker 1: everything that I've explored and read and people I've talked to,
Speaker 1: But help me understand it a little more. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it was and we've had, you know, both
Speaker 1: documentary and narrative pieces that have since explored that whole case.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was siminar case and American criminal justice,
Speaker 1: but also speak so clearly to know the racial divide,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, just being around at that
Speaker 1: time I was in college, the feeling was know so
Speaker 1: often the criminal justice system is unjust towards the black man, right,
Speaker 1: It's so skewed, it's so destructive. I mean, day in
Speaker 1: and day out, years and years of never winning, of
Speaker 1: never that the win on such a high in such
Speaker 1: a high profile way, even though intellectually you know this
Speaker 1: is not a good guy. But the optics and the
Speaker 1: triumph of finally being on the on the winning side,
Speaker 1: I think was such a powerful um It was such
Speaker 1: a powerful feeling. Did you feel that way? I don't
Speaker 1: remember how I felt at the time about it. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was following that close I was
Speaker 1: in college and having a good time, but I do
Speaker 1: remember a sense of kind of drama and excitement and
Speaker 1: energy during the the high speed chase. I was in
Speaker 1: l A. I saw it go by. I mean, at
Speaker 1: some point it became um, you know when when I
Speaker 1: was young and then watching it, it became it was
Speaker 1: entertainment in a way, you know, and not regarding it
Speaker 1: as you know, a life or death matter, and and
Speaker 1: people who lost their lives over this, you know, it
Speaker 1: became spectacle. It was a cultural spectacle. I think that's
Speaker 1: how people, you know, you know African Americans. Uh, some
Speaker 1: people were able to divorce themselves from the actual lives
Speaker 1: lost and say, wow, we won when really it wasn't
Speaker 1: quite the wind that that that it was embraced as
Speaker 1: at the time. So rather than pursue journalism, you decided
Speaker 1: to move toward the entertainment industry. So I just forget
Speaker 1: that that you wanted to do. For all, they're not
Speaker 1: going to be going through. But you chose a kind
Speaker 1: of unconventional path for what you're doing now. You started
Speaker 1: your own marketing and publicity agency, and you did that
Speaker 1: for many years, even after you had started making films.
Speaker 1: How did that training and background inform your filmmaking? I
Speaker 1: loved films, so what that did is just allowed me
Speaker 1: to immerse myself in film even more. Uh So, I
Speaker 1: started out after the news stint um, working for studios
Speaker 1: and publicity firms that specialized in films. How do you
Speaker 1: as a film go or when you think about how
Speaker 1: do you know that a film is coming out? You
Speaker 1: know how whatever whether it's the commercial, it's the red carpet,
Speaker 1: it's the entertainment to nice piece, it's the review in
Speaker 1: the newspaper, all the ways that you know that a
Speaker 1: film is coming out, that's what the public system the
Speaker 1: marketers to do. So that's what I did, and I
Speaker 1: loved it because it gave me close proximity to filmmakers
Speaker 1: and I love sets and movies and so just working
Speaker 1: for thirteen years and film that closely gave me a
Speaker 1: set of tools that really made up for not going
Speaker 1: to film school. Because I didn't go to film school,
Speaker 1: but I was working as a publicist on film sets
Speaker 1: and traveling with filmmakers, and so when I decided to
Speaker 1: make my own films, I had some basse uh to
Speaker 1: go from. Even though I hadn't gone to a traditional school,
Speaker 1: and so all that marketing experience must have come in
Speaker 1: incredibly handy because so much of filmmaking today obviously is
Speaker 1: the artistry and what you're doing to to produce this
Speaker 1: this piece of work, but also to make sure it's
Speaker 1: seen and heard and that people are aware of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure that's been Have you continue to
Speaker 1: get where your marketing has in some saying, it's really odd.
Speaker 1: I don't think about marketing when I'm casting. I don't
Speaker 1: think about it when I'm making the thing. Uh, And
Speaker 1: I think, knowing so much about marketing publicity, I know
Speaker 1: that you can market and publicize anything. So I just
Speaker 1: let myself be free with what I'm doing when the
Speaker 1: time comes to market and publicize. I can have different
Speaker 1: kinds of conversations with studios and networks than a lot
Speaker 1: of my filmmaking partners do our colleagues do, because I
Speaker 1: know what they're talking about in a in a deep way. Um,
Speaker 1: But I really don't think about I don't think when
Speaker 1: i'm casting, oh this person will be good on a poster,
Speaker 1: or oh this person. I know that I can publicize
Speaker 1: this piece of paper sitting on the desk. I can
Speaker 1: do that. I can make you want to read this
Speaker 1: piece of paper on the very useful even after the
Speaker 1: film is right right. So it allows me to be
Speaker 1: free in the creative because I don't feel constrained by
Speaker 1: having to do certain things in order to get publicity.
Speaker 1: Didn't you weren't working in publicity and then you got
Speaker 1: hired to Actually that's what what movie was? That was that?
Speaker 1: So in earlier iteration you were actually I read did
Speaker 1: his homework and he tells me, really, but basically you
Speaker 1: startedst for someone. How crazy is that? Wait? How did
Speaker 1: that happen? And then he became the director? I know
Speaker 1: it was Lee Daniels was directing and I was not
Speaker 1: directing yet. I was asked to come on and be
Speaker 1: the publicist for it because they wanted to have conversations
Speaker 1: with the King of State and they wanted someone to
Speaker 1: be in the middle of that and so liaison between
Speaker 1: the filmmaker and the family, and that's what I was
Speaker 1: hired to do by path A, the French financers. I
Speaker 1: still have the contract where I signed to be the publicist,
Speaker 1: but the film never went forward, so that fell apart.
Speaker 1: I did get paid though, and so years later, maybe
Speaker 1: five years later. You know life, you know, life is mysterious. Crazy.
Speaker 1: Daniels made The Butler, and he said that he had
Speaker 1: sort of made his civil rights movie, so he didn't product.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he left the project and David or Yellow,
Speaker 1: wo had been cast by him and remained with the project.
Speaker 1: David Yellow was the actor who played Dr. King. I
Speaker 1: just happened to work with David Yellow on my little
Speaker 1: indie film. So David said, you know, this film doesn't
Speaker 1: have a director. You're a director. I want to work
Speaker 1: with the kid. Can I put you together with the
Speaker 1: with path A, the French financiers. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know them already. I'm the publicist for this movie.
Speaker 1: You want to kiss David on the mouth? I do,
Speaker 1: and I do often. Yes, yes, yes, he's a great friend.
Speaker 1: But yeah he Basically, when I think of like one
Speaker 1: sim in a moment, of one person who made a
Speaker 1: critical decision that helped me sit where I am today
Speaker 1: talking to you at Disney on you know, posting Wrinkling Time,
Speaker 1: it was David connecting me to Sama. Well. It had
Speaker 1: a twenty million dollar budget and while I think obviously
Speaker 1: clearly David thought you were extraordinarily talented and had great potential.
Speaker 1: I mean that was a pretty big leap, wasn't it. Ava.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, the film before was two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: to twenty million. But you know the bottom line is,
Speaker 1: so many of my male counterparts make that leap and
Speaker 1: no one blinks an eye. I mean it's a it's
Speaker 1: a standard leap from Indy two million range. So I
Speaker 1: mean it's not unprecedented in any way, and it was
Speaker 1: quite easy. So without relitigating the kind of the controversy
Speaker 1: around how lb J was portrayed in that film, because
Speaker 1: I think that's been discussed at length, I do want
Speaker 1: to know your view on sort of how much of
Speaker 1: responsibility filmmakers have when they're depicting historical events to be
Speaker 1: as truthful as possible, or is there artistic license to
Speaker 1: tell the story in a way that the diverges a
Speaker 1: little bit from the facts of history. Where where is
Speaker 1: that line drawn? To you? Yeah, I think it was
Speaker 1: interesting because during that time there was a bar that
Speaker 1: I was being held to, a standards that was being
Speaker 1: held to that. You know, counterparts who are not African
Speaker 1: American are not held to you know, when I look
Speaker 1: at Oliver stone when I look at Catherine Bigelow, when
Speaker 1: I look at many many people who've taken a really Scott,
Speaker 1: I mean so many people that are dealing with issues
Speaker 1: around history or or or true events, UM, that are
Speaker 1: kind of not ricked over those coals. I think there
Speaker 1: are stones movies aren't true to history. But the idea
Speaker 1: that when you say the word story, you're inserting UM
Speaker 1: opinion perspective in a certain point of view. I mean,
Speaker 1: we can all tell the story of sitting here in
Speaker 1: this room together right now, and we will all tell
Speaker 1: it in a different way. I'm seeing and feeling different things,
Speaker 1: and you may be sealing our feeling and that's your
Speaker 1: version of the story and your version of the story.
Speaker 1: Who's to say what's wrong and what's not? And I
Speaker 1: so I think gross distortions are one thing. I think
Speaker 1: perspective is another. And in Selma, I took the perspective
Speaker 1: of an African American community and the ways in which
Speaker 1: lb lb J was regarded by us by a lot
Speaker 1: of black folk, and uh, and so that was deemed
Speaker 1: as wrong and kind of held up as wrong by
Speaker 1: the LBG LBJ Library. But again, all I was saying
Speaker 1: was it's a matter of perspective, and can't we invite
Speaker 1: more perspectives into a historical context. What did you make
Speaker 1: of that whole controversy? But I've said that before. We'll
Speaker 1: have more with Ava Daverney from her office here on
Speaker 1: the Disney lot in beautiful downtown Burbank right after this.
Speaker 1: And now back to our conversation with Ava Daverney. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about what you're doing now, because we're here in
Speaker 1: in Burbank and lovely downtown Burbank and you are editing
Speaker 1: your brains out on this new movie or working on
Speaker 1: called A Wrinkling Time, which of course many of us
Speaker 1: read as children. This is something that you're working on
Speaker 1: with Oprah Winfrey. She's one of the stars. She's one
Speaker 1: of the stars. And Crisp and you guys have been
Speaker 1: shooting in New Zealand, Is that right? Yeah? We shot
Speaker 1: Mndy and Reese and Oprah and Eye and Storm read
Speaker 1: the Star of the film, Young Star of the Film.
Speaker 1: I went to New Zealand. I never know you can
Speaker 1: have so much fun, you know, in another in another
Speaker 1: in a place that just it's very pristine. It's just nature.
Speaker 1: It's untapped. Nature's where we were and I'm from the continent,
Speaker 1: from the city. I like city girls, Like what is
Speaker 1: one to do here? Everything? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: What did you do? I just make a movie? Like
Speaker 1: I don't swim, like I don't. I don't like dogs
Speaker 1: and animals like I really, I like to be inside
Speaker 1: and in the city, like I am not. Like I've
Speaker 1: never not a hiker, never camped like none of that.
Speaker 1: Zealand loving it boots mad up to my ankles in
Speaker 1: the jungles in the forest, and they have a little
Speaker 1: bit of everything. I thought. And I'm like forty four
Speaker 1: years old experiencing nature untouched for the first time. How
Speaker 1: we were everybody about three weeks? And I visited over
Speaker 1: that year before four times, and the scouting in the preparation.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I want to go to New Zealand.
Speaker 1: Oh you'll love it. Will come for the premiere? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: when is it? Times in March next year. I definitely
Speaker 1: want to go when it's warm, because they're they're summer
Speaker 1: is our winter. So I was thinking about maybe trying
Speaker 1: to do a bite trip to New Zealand. You love it,
Speaker 1: you love it, and you can finish it up with
Speaker 1: the premiere of. I don't have a problem. But how
Speaker 1: did you and Oprah become friends and colleague? It was
Speaker 1: around David Yellow. He's like my favorite god from six
Speaker 1: Degrees of obviously initially with Selma, No, initially before that,
Speaker 1: he had given her when they were working on the Butlers.
Speaker 1: He played her son. And he was in the small
Speaker 1: film for me that at one Sundance and he said, hey,
Speaker 1: check out this film. I man. I said, I can't
Speaker 1: believe you're asking out for win For to watch her
Speaker 1: indie film that made for two dollars. But he did,
Speaker 1: and she did. She watched it, and she wrote me
Speaker 1: and said that she and she tweeted me. I thought
Speaker 1: I framed the tweet. I was that over Winfree tweeted
Speaker 1: me and but she tweeted that she liked the film
Speaker 1: and encouraged me able to see it. And from there
Speaker 1: as it continued on um, we started to all collaborate
Speaker 1: on Selma and next Queen Sugar and next Wrinkling Time.
Speaker 1: And you told a very funny story about bringing flowers
Speaker 1: to Oprah's house. All right, Well, you know the first
Speaker 1: time I'm invited to her home was up for Mother's Day.
Speaker 1: I brought my grandmother. Uh, and she had a lovely
Speaker 1: Mother's Day brunch. And I went in and of course
Speaker 1: you're gonna bring flowers to someone's come to their homes.
Speaker 1: So I went, Katie. I spent the most I've ever
Speaker 1: spent on flowers. I went to the fanciest place in
Speaker 1: l A. How much did you spend on It was like,
Speaker 1: it's like five the flowers. I mean, that's like, that's
Speaker 1: what's right. And so I went and I bought these
Speaker 1: flowers because it's Oprah. I really want to make a
Speaker 1: good impression. I wanted to let her know how much
Speaker 1: she means to me. Have these flowers. I go in
Speaker 1: and I give them to her, and she's lovely and gracious.
Speaker 1: She looks at them like she's never seen flowers. Oh oh,
Speaker 1: aren't they lovely? Thank you? And she takes the flowers
Speaker 1: and she doesn't hand them off, she takes herself. She
Speaker 1: puts them in the sink, the whole thing, and out
Speaker 1: the window of the sink, I can see past the
Speaker 1: kitchen window a field of endless flowers. She's got a
Speaker 1: garden that looks like the botanical gardens of whatever. The
Speaker 1: best botanical gardens are with like gardeners in green green jackets,
Speaker 1: like tending to the tulips that was that there was
Speaker 1: no garden. What is it that makes Oprah that you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, to not blink and eye to
Speaker 1: still make you feel special even though you brought flowers
Speaker 1: when she's got to fill the flower it's just the
Speaker 1: extra thing. She's one of those people they you say,
Speaker 1: you leave her feeling better about yourself, even in a
Speaker 1: quick encounter. It's lovely lady, and she's very normal. She's
Speaker 1: a very normal, lovely woman. So I know we've got
Speaker 1: limited time, and I do want to ask you in
Speaker 1: the wake of thirteen about the prospects for criminal justice
Speaker 1: reform in this country, because that supposed to be the
Speaker 1: one thing that Democrats and Republicans could get together by
Speaker 1: a partisan moment exactly didn't happen last year. The prospects
Speaker 1: have gone down dramatically under President Trump. Where do you
Speaker 1: see this issue going? You know, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: have the answers to where it's going, especially when I
Speaker 1: think of the political layer and how dire things are
Speaker 1: right now. But I know what it's done in the community. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's created a unity and a real strength around the
Speaker 1: issues where you know, places that might once have been
Speaker 1: fractured around it are really coming together and holding hands.
Speaker 1: It's a very intersectional effort in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: you can see Black Lives Matter activists connected with Native
Speaker 1: Americans in their plight. You can see Native Americans, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, focused on the Flint water crisis and starting
Speaker 1: to see the connections between people who are marginalized across
Speaker 1: you know, color, religion. I mean the ways in which
Speaker 1: all kinds of communities of color and marginalized people are
Speaker 1: standing up for Muslim Americans. So there's something that's happening
Speaker 1: there that I think I have to be hopeful is
Speaker 1: and then and then just like minded you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, liberal allies who who aren't of color and
Speaker 1: who aren't women right saying we will stand with you
Speaker 1: and we we are part of this. I feel that, um,
Speaker 1: and I think that's only going to increase as the
Speaker 1: kind of the opposition increases. Even the Koch Brothers are
Speaker 1: behind criminal justice reform, and they you know here they
Speaker 1: are have very disparate views from sort of the traditional
Speaker 1: progressive point of view, but uh, they feel strongly that
Speaker 1: something has got to be done about mass incarceration and
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform. But this woman, Agnes Gunn have you
Speaker 1: heard of uh? And what she did? She saw at
Speaker 1: the New York Film Festival premiere. She immediately called the
Speaker 1: Ford Foundations and said what can I do? They said, oh,
Speaker 1: you got money, what do you want to do? And
Speaker 1: she decided to sell her her artwork UM and create
Speaker 1: a fund for a criminal justice Art for Justice a
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty million dollars UH that she's put aside
Speaker 1: from her art sales specifically earmarked for criminal justice reform.
Speaker 1: So people are, you know, from that to people that
Speaker 1: are planning community actions in their neighborhoods. There's a lot
Speaker 1: going on. But clearly President Trump and Attorney General Sessions
Speaker 1: in particular have cut against that grain. And they believe
Speaker 1: in the old you know, policy of mandatory minimums and
Speaker 1: lock them up and and all the rest. Do you
Speaker 1: think that they're doing this because substantively they believe in
Speaker 1: those policies or do you think there are political motivations
Speaker 1: behind that? Oh? Political motivations. I think they're racist policies,
Speaker 1: misogynistic policies, policies that are at odds with the good
Speaker 1: of humanity. So they're going a race card in your
Speaker 1: in your mind, I think that they are not that
Speaker 1: they're disingenuous in their you know, statements that they're they're
Speaker 1: looking to make America great. The question is what America
Speaker 1: are they trying to make great? It's a very thin slice,
Speaker 1: and it leaves behind and leaves out a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of people that look like me and so uh so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the easy sound bite is to say they're
Speaker 1: playing the race car. But that's not what I'm interested
Speaker 1: in talking about. I'm interested in saying, you know, these
Speaker 1: folks are saying one thing and behaving another way, and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who have kind of
Speaker 1: blinders on as to the real destruction that's happening in
Speaker 1: terms of the fabric of what holds us all together.
Speaker 1: So do you think, I mean, what what can be dune?
Speaker 1: What more? I mean? I think sometimes people see a
Speaker 1: movie like Thirteenth which I thought was so extraordinary, my daughter,
Speaker 1: I thought it was so important, and and they say,
Speaker 1: we've got to change this, but they also in some
Speaker 1: ways feel powerless, you know. So someone listening to this
Speaker 1: wanted to do something that would contribute to some kind
Speaker 1: of transformation for the criminal justice system or some kind
Speaker 1: of change. What would you tell them to do? Well?
Speaker 1: I think you know, the reason why I didn't put
Speaker 1: any easy solutions or one number of website or anything
Speaker 1: at the end of thirteen or call to action or
Speaker 1: a call to action is because you know, it is
Speaker 1: an an individual quest. You know, who were you at
Speaker 1: this time and what did you do? You know, during
Speaker 1: these circumstances you were in the world at this time,
Speaker 1: you saw an injustice. What did you do? And that
Speaker 1: answer is going to be different for everyone. For Agnes
Speaker 1: Kunn it was one thing. From Malkia Cyril, who works
Speaker 1: in Oakland and organizes folks on the ground there, it's
Speaker 1: a different thing. And so the question is a personal
Speaker 1: to intimate question because I think it's really kind of
Speaker 1: surface to donate or or or sign a petition. Our
Speaker 1: question with thirteen is look inside. What of this whole
Speaker 1: story really really hit your heart? And what can you
Speaker 1: do where you are? And some of it, ave, I
Speaker 1: think is just asking people to see the world different
Speaker 1: and behave and treat and treat it right. And it
Speaker 1: comes to would be it could inform their day to
Speaker 1: day interactions and how they analyze a news story. Or
Speaker 1: how they look at something that's transpiring in their neighbor absolute,
Speaker 1: or how they teach their children. I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you about Central Park five because you are now doing
Speaker 1: scripted version of that story for Netflix. Something that I
Speaker 1: covered um I interviewed the victim of of of a
Speaker 1: rape and brutal beating in Central Park for which these
Speaker 1: kids were blamed and convicted and by President Trump, who
Speaker 1: took out a full page ad, as I recall at
Speaker 1: the time, saying that these people who were accused of
Speaker 1: the crime and later exonerated, tell me why how that
Speaker 1: came about, and why you're excited about this project. I'm
Speaker 1: on fire for this project. This is something that I
Speaker 1: heard about when I was a teenager. Those guys at
Speaker 1: the same age as I am, and I was on
Speaker 1: the East Coast in Los Angeles. They were in New
Speaker 1: York and Harlem, uh and I remember hearing it and
Speaker 1: and tuning into it because they were my age. They
Speaker 1: look like me, they look like my friends. And I
Speaker 1: remember because the news kept talking about this word wilding, wilding,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what's wilding? What it was? I
Speaker 1: called my cousin who lives in New York. I was like,
Speaker 1: what's wilding is that? Is that a slaying like New
Speaker 1: York slaying. They're like, nah, we don't know it is right,
Speaker 1: So even that term is so fascinating. Well, it was
Speaker 1: a made up term by the media that was that
Speaker 1: was based on a on a slang term called wilding out,
Speaker 1: which is something totally different. It's like I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: while out tonight have fun. And so it was just
Speaker 1: this whole distortion of black youth culture at the time
Speaker 1: that really just you know, came into my head and
Speaker 1: just never let go that. When I saw Sarah Burns
Speaker 1: is great documentary Central Park five just ignited it even more.
Speaker 1: And when I got to kind of follow where these
Speaker 1: guys what they had gone through, it really, um it
Speaker 1: just took hold of my heart. So I started to
Speaker 1: correspond with one of them, Raymond Santana, on Twitter. It
Speaker 1: actually reached out to me on Twitter city like my stuff.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, you wanted this Gentral
Speaker 1: Park five. We started to correspond and I started to
Speaker 1: ask about their rights, and um, over two years, we've
Speaker 1: developed it and I'm gonna shoot it next year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: twill be out for the thirtieth anniversary. Of the crimea
Speaker 1: and Twitter seems to be playing a central role in
Speaker 1: your career because you're set also for Netflix to direct
Speaker 1: this movie starring Rihanna and Luke Pete and Yongo that
Speaker 1: started as a kind of internet dream on Twitter. But
Speaker 1: we have confirmed that that's not a done deal yet.
Speaker 1: But the ladies are all talking about it and we'll
Speaker 1: see if we can. We can, uh, if it's something real,
Speaker 1: but it's fun. I mean, just the power of the
Speaker 1: people on Twitter. Can you just briefly tell us that
Speaker 1: story just just a Twitter idea, an idea that actually
Speaker 1: started on Tumbler and then Twitter and then kind of
Speaker 1: made its way around social media from a couple of
Speaker 1: different fans who saw this picture of Lupita and Rihanna
Speaker 1: at a fashion show and started to make up stories
Speaker 1: about the picture, and it started to go viral. Some
Speaker 1: of these different ones went viral, and eventually studios started
Speaker 1: well online people said, oh, wouldn't be great if Evid directed,
Speaker 1: Sarey wrote it and these women were in a movie
Speaker 1: and uh, and then studio started calling and going to
Speaker 1: do it. We're all going to do but we're all
Speaker 1: talking about it. That's crazy, isn't it? How these were
Speaker 1: these ideas bubble up you never now And finally I
Speaker 1: know you're you're itching to continue your editing process, and
Speaker 1: you're so kind to give us even this much time.
Speaker 1: But I have to ask you about the Ava Da
Speaker 1: Barney Barbie, right, how it was that that was a
Speaker 1: thing that just even now when I hear about it,
Speaker 1: it just tickles me. Ah, that is a thing that
Speaker 1: even you know, when we were started the conversation talking
Speaker 1: about how the Emmy's feel and all that stuff, that
Speaker 1: feels like I thought an Emmy would feel that Barbarie,
Speaker 1: I mean, what a thing? How how can it be?
Speaker 1: I used to love barbies. That was my first storytelling.
Speaker 1: It's playing with barbies and making up those stories. And
Speaker 1: when I saw the time you probably didn't have many
Speaker 1: barbies who look like I did not. I did not,
Speaker 1: I did not, And so I mean, what a thing.
Speaker 1: And she has her own director's chair and she's got
Speaker 1: like like and it's just that's the thing that really
Speaker 1: lifts my heart. And yeah, well you've got your own Barberie.
Speaker 1: You gotta all these Emmy nominations doing incredible work. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you have a second to say, take a breath,
Speaker 1: Eva and say, wow, this is happening for me and
Speaker 1: I feel so so happy. I do, and it's so
Speaker 1: cool that I get to talk to you this week.
Speaker 1: Because I was just talking with Oprah, I said, this
Speaker 1: is a really special week for me because on Monday's
Speaker 1: Central Park five was announced. Um. On Tuesday, we had
Speaker 1: this big cover of Ebony magazine, which is a you know,
Speaker 1: landmark magazine in the black community, with the cast of
Speaker 1: Queen Sugar, a show that came out of my head
Speaker 1: in my heart, which we didn't even have a chance.
Speaker 1: That was Tuesday. On Wednesday, we released the first pictures
Speaker 1: of Wrinkle, the first pictures that anyone had seen of it.
Speaker 1: And then today Thursday, I sit with you with the
Speaker 1: Emmy nominations and I can just say, wow, a week
Speaker 1: of beauty and happiness. I feel so happy. You know. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm moving around, I'm going fast, but I am smelling
Speaker 1: the roses and they smell good. They smell beautiful. They
Speaker 1: should because everything is coming up roses for you. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. This was so funny. We can't wait
Speaker 1: to see what you do next for next and next,
Speaker 1: Thanks Katie, appreciate, Thank you. Bye to the team who
Speaker 1: helps make this show possible. Thank you, Thank you very
Speaker 1: much our producer Gianna Palmer, our production assistant Nora Richie,
Speaker 1: Ryan Connor for recording Burbank, Jared O'Connell for mixing this show,
Speaker 1: plus of course alis At Bresnik on social media and
Speaker 1: Emily Beana who holds down the Fort at Katie Kurk Media.
Speaker 1: Mark Phillips wrote, are fantastic theme music. Thank you Mark.
Speaker 1: If you have questions, comments or concerns less you forget,
Speaker 1: you can email us at comments at currect podcast dot
Speaker 1: com or please leave us a voicemail at four four
Speaker 1: six three seven. We truly love hearing from our listeners.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear what you like, what you don't like,
Speaker 1: and what we can do more on the show that
Speaker 1: might please you. And if you can't get enough of us,
Speaker 1: I'm at Katie Curic on Twitter and Instagram and Katie
Speaker 1: dot correct on Snapchat. You can bind me on Facebook
Speaker 1: as well. Brian is tweeting up a storm meanwhile over
Speaker 1: at goldsmith b on Twitter, and don't forget. We so
Speaker 1: appreciate your ratings and reviews over at Apple Podcasts and
Speaker 1: subscribe as well. Please catch you later, Dear listeners, Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Chow