Before Directing ‘Selma,’ Ava DuVernay Made Her Mark With This Indie Drama

Ava DuVernay's next film, Origin, comes to select theaters this week. Origin is conceptually unique; it adapts a cerebral work of literary non-fiction – Isabel Wilkerson's exploration of parallel structures of discrimination, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by transforming it into the story of Wilkerson's creative process. It sounds audacious, but DuVernay has never been flustered by this. Today, as a director of multiple award-winning films and television shows, she is an auteur who can feel confident that her work will be taken seriously, no matter how innovative. But back in 2012, DuVernay was a relatively unknown talent, a working film publicist, and she was debuting her second feature film: the indie drama Middle of Nowhere. Middle of Nowhere is no less audacious, and, considering its tiny budget, represents a small miracle.

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