By 2011, she had founded the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement — a collective of black film festivals — and was the writer-director of the critically acclaimed independent film, "I Will Follow." She joked with CNN at the time about calling the Sundance Film Festival "Blackdance," because of its abundance of minority films that year.But DuVernay was — and remains — very serious about the need for inclusive storytelling."Ultimately, if we have people that are serious about diversifying films, whether it be black films, women's films, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) films or Latino films, they have to be building those structures year-round," DuVernay said then. "Then that becomes a conversation, where there were these amazing black films, Latino films, LGBT films and films made and directed by women that were ignored." Now there is no way DuVernay can be overlooked.'When They See Us' makes a powerful case to be seenWith her latest project, "When They See Us," the writer/director has seemingly presented audiences a mix of the creativity she brought to films like "Selma" and "A Wrinkle in Time" with the social activism of her documentary "13th," which explores racial inequality and the prison system."When They See Us" is a limited series about five teen boys of color who were wrongfully convicted in 1990 of a brutal rape and beating of a white female jogger in New York City's Central Park.The convictions of the Central Park Five, as the boys came to be called, were later vacated after Matias Reyes, a convicted serial rapist, confessed to the attack.The series highlights police and prosecutorial abuse experienced by the teens in the case, along with the struggles they face as adults."It's a story that really allows us to look at, yes, this case, but also the overall system that is called criminal justice and how unjust it actually is," DuVernay told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in a recent interview."A lot of people talk about the system being broken," DuVernay said. "But I don't believe the system is broken. I believe it's working exactly as it was built to work."DuVernay knows the power of good storytelling. Before she became a filmmaker she was an entertainment publicist, adeptat generating buzz for films like "Dreamgirls" and "Invictus." "I never had a desire to be a filmmaker," DuVernay told New York magazine in 2014. "As a child anRead More – Source
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