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The Treatment

Ava DuVernay: Middle of Nowhere

The Treatment

KCRW

Arts

4.6639 Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2012

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Elvis talks to filmmaker Ava DuVernay about her new film, "Middle of Nowhere," and starting her own distribution company.

Transcript

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0:00.0

From KCRW, Santa Monica and KCRW.com, this is The Treatment.

0:15.5

Welcome to The Treatment, which you can also hear at KCRW.com.

0:19.1

My guest, writer-director, Avery-DeVernate, basically built a place for herself in the film world by marketing her own films.

0:26.0

Her terrific debut film was I Will Follow a few years ago, which got her a lot of attention.

0:30.0

Her newest film, Middle of Nowhere, won the best director prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

0:34.9

Ava, thanks so much for being here.

0:36.3

Thank you.

0:37.3

But let's talk about, though.

0:39.0

Let's start with what I will follow.

0:42.0

I'm guessing in the making of that, you kind of recognize that you had to sort of

0:45.3

blaze a path in terms of marketing a film just because, let's just say, the conventional

0:49.7

marketers don't exactly know how to get films out to audiences of color, do that? Well, I mean, I was a conventional marketer for a lot of years. I mean, my agency had an agency,

0:57.3

and my background is as a publicist and marketer. So, yeah, I mean, I've seen all kinds of campaigns,

1:03.1

campaigns that land appropriately, and campaigns that are completely misguided. And campaigns that are just

1:08.0

are not really interested in reaching a certain audience. And that's valid, too.

1:11.5

If that's what they want to do, it's their money, it's their projects.

1:13.8

I think for what...

1:14.7

Wait a second. That's valid too.

1:15.5

They just are basically making just an empty gesture to get into an audience?

1:19.6

We make our own projects.

1:21.1

And that's kind of what my mindset is.

1:23.4

I'm not really interested in forcing people to do what I need them to do. I'll just do it on my own.

...

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