SPEAKER_01: TED Audio Collective.
I'm Elise Hu. You're listening to TED Talks Daily.
Ava DuVernay is a writer, producer, and filmmaker in Hollywood. She has just released an ambitious film inspired by Isabel Wilkerson's book, CAST. And she sat down with TED Women editorial director, Pat Mitchell, at TED Women 2023 to talk through the moviemaking landscape today and how to make an impact with storytelling. Coming up after a break.
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SPEAKER_00: The history of HIV and AIDS is the history of people who were told to stay out of sight and who refused. Gay men, but also injection drug users, women and yes, children who contracted the virus. Join us for the series Blindspot, the plague in the shadows. How much pain could have been avoided had we paid attention sooner? And what lessons could we have learned? From History Channel and WNYC Studios. Listen wherever you get podcasts.
SPEAKER_02: So, Ava, I told you this already that thank you for the special privilege to see the film. Here I will tell you, you absolutely must see origin when it comes to a theater.
But knowing the book and how complex and challenging and how deeply researched
the thesis of this monumental piece of work that, as I said, left my heart pounding and my mind reeling,
what inspired you to take this project on and translate to a feature film?
SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm always happy to sit with you. So thank you for having me.
You know, people told me this was an unadaptable book.
So the only logical thing to do is to try to adapt it. But the book really grabbed me.
The first time I read it, I was taken by the fact that I didn't quite get it.
And that frustrated me. So I read it again and I just read it three times and started to feel really connected to some of the stories and some of the characters that the author uses to bring us into this idea that she has, this thesis that so much of our oppression is linked and that if we embrace the commonalities of our challenges,
that there was a way forward, a blueprint to trying to kind of combat some of our social ills. And so within that, that's a hard movie to make, just that.
But I'd heard about these beautiful stories about her life. She's a remarkable woman, Isabel Wilkerson. And so I thought, well, maybe I can use her life and work as the impetus for the story.
And so started to try to find those parallels and was really... I felt guided through the process. You know, sometimes you just get in a groove. I have a friend who cooks really well. I really don't.
And she just gets in a groove. She can make something out of whatever's in the kitchen. They don't even look like they connect, but she can put it together. This film was the first time I felt like I got in a groove out of everything that I made. And that two things, her life and the historical context of cast, somehow fit together, even though on its surface, it may not look like it.
SPEAKER_02: And I think most people hearing that you've made a film of cast would think, oh, it's going to be a documentary, another one of those stunning Ava documentaries. But it is, in fact, a narrative film. It's a narrative film where you follow real live actors through the process.
SPEAKER_03:
Blessedly, I was able to work with one of the best actors working today,
Anjonee Ellis, who's our lead. She plays Isabel Wilkerson, and she's extraordinary. And was able to figure out a way to tell the story of the deep historical theories and the kind of social phenomena of cast within the story of a woman and her love story with her family and her husband. There's connective tissue to all of it. And really, that was the piece of the book that resonated with me so much,
is so often in our challenges, we feel alone.
And the way that you can know that there are folks who are facing similar things in different places and different times, similar to the people in this room, you start to feel that there's strength in numbers and that there's some foundation to succeed.
SPEAKER_02: Along with taking on the challenge of a very complex set of theories that Isabel Wilkerson puts forward in the book, you had a lot of other creative choices to make and challenges to get such a film made.
SPEAKER_02: Like money. Yeah, like money.
SPEAKER_03:
You know, sometimes I wish I should have just gone into sculpture.
Just need the piece of...
But yes, money is a big thing. And on its face, when you talk to studios and you say, you know, I want to make a film about cast. It's not top of the list of things that they're interested in making. So the strategy was not even to go there. To not go to each and every studio. Because I'm a realist. I know that this is a business and I understand that there are certain barriers to entry in the minds of studios as to whether or not this would be successful. So what we were able to do was raise the money independently. That's why Angenieux-Ellis is involved.
Yay, independence.
Come on, independence.
Raise the money independently. That's why Angenieux-Ellis' involvement is so extraordinary because she had just come off of the Academy Award nomination for King Richard.
And could have really done anything. And we asked her to come and join this independent film. She actually asked... We asked each other to come and join this independent film. And we held hands. And I took that lady all over the world. We did three continents in 37 days.
SPEAKER_03: And I really needed a partner who could stand toe to toe with me and do that work. With independent money. Independent means there's no more.
This is the money. And there's nothing else coming. And it was a fantastic way to work. You know, it was a freeing in a way.
SPEAKER_02:
And I know that with all of your work you always have a strategy too about what will be the impact of the film and how does it go beyond seeing the film on screen. What are those plans? Well, I just feel like making the film on its own
SPEAKER_03: and being satisfied with the film being out is really just half the work for myself as a filmmaker. I can't just put it out. I need to make sure that it gets to the audience, that it reaches folks, that it's understood, that it's interrogated, that it's shared. And so I have this crazy idea that I want every 16-year-old in the country to be able to see the film for free if they want. And so this is not a very...
There are 4 million 16-year-olds in the country right now.
If we could get 100,000 of them in, we'd be... But you know, I want them to be able to see it for free. So I literally made a website over the weekend called seat16.com.
And you just go in and you buy a ticket for a 16-year-old. It goes into a fund. And when it's time in January, when the film comes out, December or January when the film comes out, that goes from seat16.com. Not sweet, seat. Isn't it cute?
SPEAKER_03: And...
But the idea that at that age,
you're starting to interrogate your place in the world and what the world means to you and how you fit in. And I just think it's such a tender age, especially at this time, that young people be able to be autonomous in what they learn, that they're not told what they can't learn.
You know what I mean? That they are able to read what they want to read, see what they want to see.
And so that's our little solution.
SPEAKER_02: Not at all surprising that that would be one of the aspirations. And in watching it, I mean, it really does change your mind. I found myself thinking every student everywhere in the world should see this film and make these connective tissue that is so clear in her theory and in the film.
SPEAKER_02: Did you believe all the theories when you started or did something change for you in the making of the film? Did you learn something that was new and a discovery?
SPEAKER_03:
I learned so much. Everything about the Indian people, the Dalit people, I knew nothing about. I feel I'm an educated person. I thought I was well read. I'm not. We live in a container
that doesn't really promote the idea that we should be learning about people's daily lives in any place other than here.
And that is our media. That is our school, our school system. I mean, we've got it in many people in this audience. You know, you have to grab your education. You have to continue to educate yourself. So we talk about students. It's not just young people. We need to continue to be students. I think that's why everybody's here. Continuing to learn, continuing to listen and explore.
And so there was so much in the book that I maybe knew a little bit of or I hadn't made connections to. But almost every single thing about the Dalit people in India, I had never heard about.
I heard about untouchables in India, but I thought that was like feudal ancient India not happening now in the ways that it is. So we explore that in the film. One of the many things that hopefully folks will take away.
SPEAKER_02: There's so many things that you take away. And it's actually true of all of your work. Ava, I always feel that there's some revelatory truth that comes whether it's 13 or it's when they see us or... You were the one who watched it. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am.
All right, Selma. Somebody say Queen Sugar?
SPEAKER_02: Hey! That was my next name.
She knows Queen Sugar. Absolutely no Queen Sugar. But that seems to be the core. That's something you would say about an Ava DuVernay work, right?
SPEAKER_03: I hope so. But I'm really just making what I'm interested in what I've learned and trying to pass it along. When I learned the information in 13th, I wanted to share it.
When I understood what was happening with black farmers in this country, I wanted to make Queen Sugar and everything that's within it. So I just I'm like a ferocious reader who then go make a movie about it.
And it's a beautiful way to further our knowledge, because images embed themselves. I believe images embed themselves in our imagination
in a way that words alone don't.
You know, we think in picture.
You know, when your memories are pictures.
And so to be able to approximate that, to render that in film is such an honor that when I first was able to do it
and show my work in a theater like this and watch the back of people's heads as they were watching the screen and understand that emotion
was coming from the images that I made, it was highly addictive and something that I've never gotten over.
SPEAKER_02: And one of the other characteristics of everything you've done as you've moved and journeyed through Hollywood's power systems to become one of its most admired people
and one of the world's most admired talents, Ava, is that you have also brought other people with you.
It wasn't just enough that you made the journey to the top. Because that's not fun.
SPEAKER_03: Do you want to be there by yourself? What's the...
Right? It's not fun.
SPEAKER_02: But you actualized that in creating your own studio. And talk to us about Array, what its purpose is and what it has done
for people of color in the film industry.
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's a handmade, homemade space. You know, mom and pop stores, this is just a mom store. And it's a place where we make what we want to make,
we say what we want to say, we educate ourselves and other people, we congregate around ideas and images. But it's really community. I found that it's just boring by yourself.
It's not as much fun to be at the... On the red carpet, the award show, all those things are not as much fun as being able to sit in a theater and watch a movie with folks who are being able to see the movie for free or to discuss a film
or to talk about ideas or to listen to a lecture. So we have a small campus in Los Angeles that is a community space, it has a small theater. And we just invite people to come in and out and share their imagination and their ideas with us. And we've created Array Crew, which is a database so that people of color, women of all kinds, older people, people who are kind of aged out of our industry are no longer called for crew jobs. They're all in a database. All of the people that are outside of the box, you can find them and you can hire them. On Queen Sugar, we hired all women directors for seven seasons. Whenever you're doing the work, you're just finding ways...
APPLAUSE Thank you. I'm just really finding ways to have good people around.
And it's really simple as that.
SPEAKER_02: And to show up for other people, which you have clearly done, as a role model, clearly.
And I know that you value that. You value the mentors who have been in your life and the mentorship that you've offered to others. And recently you brought back one of your early mentors, someone who had inspired you,
around a concept that I found fascinating. And I'd love you to talk about it a bit.
The idea that what we all need to find is our liberated territory. Yes. What is that?
SPEAKER_03: So, Haile Gerima. I don't know if anyone here knows Haile Gerima. Haile Gerima. An extraordinary filmmaker, Ethiopian-born filmmaker, who studied at UCLA, went on to be a professor of film and art at Howard University for many years, has a small bookstore and cafe called Sankofa. Named after his film, Sankofa the Most Sublime, exquisite, deeply moving, nuanced rendering of any depiction of slavery, of African people ever made, in my opinion, now on Netflix, distributed by Ray. But, and he has this idea that in order to thrive,
not just as an artist, but as a person, you must find and claim your liberated territory. So, for him, it was that bookstore, Sankofa. This is my space. This is where I work. This is my physical space where I can be courageous, where I can dream and fulfill those dreams within my own mind, my own heart, and with my own hands. So, I duplicated that and made our array campus in Los Angeles very much modeled after that. But I've continued to think about liberated territory in other ways, because what if you aren't a filmmaker? What if you can't have these buildings? What is the liberated territory, the space where you feel the most courageous? Doesn't even have to be a physical space. It needs to be the space that you can go to inside yourself that is your safe place, where you allow yourself to be able to ideate, have bad ideas,
talk yourself into ideas, talk yourself out of that idea.
And just cultivate that within yourself. So, for me, it wasn't just the physical space. It was also freeing my mind and freeing up spaces within me where I said, this is my liberated territory. This is where I go. This is my time. This is the way I do it, to just let my mind be free and have courage, have courage. And so it doesn't just come. You have to create the right conditions. And that term, liberated territory, just it stayed with both of us when we talked about it. And it is a bit of a mantra. So my hope is that I found mine in film
SPEAKER_03: and the hope is that we can all find ours in whatever ways we're able to.
SPEAKER_02: You did find yours in film. And because you found yours, you're providing liberated territory for many of the rest of us. And I often think when I look at such monumental work, and that really does characterize all of your work, Ava, I think, what could be next?
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
And you know what? This is the first time that I've ever not known what my next project is.
Since I started, I didn't pick up a camera until I was 32. And so when I got the opportunity to make films, I just thought the door was gonna close. I need to go fast. I need to keep going before they figure out,
I don't know what I'm doing. Never went to film school. I just picked up the camera. And so I just started running as fast as I can. And this really is the first film. Working with Anjanu, working with the team that I've been with for a long time, I was able to, at the end of this process, which we just finished the film a couple of weeks ago, say, I don't have something else next. And that's okay.
That's okay to take a second.
The door's not gonna close.
The door's not gonna close.
And you know what, if it does, I got my Liberated Territory. I'll just be right over here. It's okay. But it's the first time I don't know, and it feels really nice.
SPEAKER_02: Well, the door is definitely not going to close. And to go back to origin and the way that I felt watching this film and the way I've thought about it so many times since,
SPEAKER_02: I wonder what is your highest, deepest aspiration for the way people will respond?
What will be the change? What do you want the response to be?
SPEAKER_03: I usually resist answering that question because I don't want to prescribe what's, everyone comes in with their own stuff.
SPEAKER_03:
I just want, I feel emotional.
I want people to enter into the film
with an open heart and mind,
because I've seen that when people do that,
with this work, for whatever reason, good things happen.
And you just have to stay open. And so often I turn on the TV or I'm watching something or I'm reading something kind of with my mental arms folded.
I know what I feel about this, and I already have an opinion.
And the hope is that folks,
that this film engenders a spirit of, let me just go in open and see what it's about and see what it brings up in me.
That's my hope.
SPEAKER_02: I can only say that that is what happens.
SPEAKER_02: I like that.
SPEAKER_02: I like that. I like that. I think it's quite a gift to be able to create art, to tell stories, to create narrative, that really does change the way people see the world. And you have done that, Ava DuVernay. It's a privilege. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing with me. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:
Appreciate you. Thank you so much.
