Ava Marie DuVernay  was born on August 24, 1972, and is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, film marketer, and film distributor. DuVernay won the directing award in the U.S. dramatic competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for her second feature film Middle of Nowhere, becoming the first black woman to win the award. For her work on Selma, DuVernay was the first black female director to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award.  With Selma, she was also the first black female director to have her film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2017, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for her film 13th.

In 2018, DuVernay directed the fantasy film A Wrinkle in Time, and had a production and marketing budget between $150 million and $250 million, making her the first black-American woman to direct a live-action film with a budget of that size. That film also made her the first black-American woman to direct a film that earned at least $100 million domestically.