Ava DuVernay
Ava Duvernay owns a successful public relations firm but left her career and ventured into film. She debuted her first documentary ‘This is The Life in 2008’ then 35-year-old and worked her way up to directing the highly much-admired Selma released in 2014 when she was 42.
DuVernay became the first black woman to win the directing award in the U.S. dramatic competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for her second feature film ‘Middle of Nowhere’.
She is a filmmaker and film distributor who became the first black American woman to direct a film that earned at least $100 million domestically.