Ava DuVernay's best filmmaking advice: never let male colleagues' bad behaviour slide

Ava DuVernay is one of the most prolific filmmakers working right now, so it’s no surprise that she makes zero time for nonsense on her sets. The Oscar-nominated director of films like 13th, Selma, and When They See Us says she was advised early on to call out disrespectful behaviour when she sees it—especially as a female director. DuVernay linked up with TIFF co-head Cameron Bailey Monday evening for an In Conversation With event that saw her share advice and experience with young, would-be directors—including the best advice she herself was ever given.“A long, long time ago I got some advice from Gina Prince-Bythewood who told me to not let bad behaviour slide especially as it related to male crew members and their interaction with you as a woman director,” Duvernay told Bailey. “Your instinct might be, ‘I’m the director. I’m in charge. Let that go.’ But [Prince-Bythewood] had talked about how it was really important to call it what it is. Acknowledge it—and not privately [but] in the open. Let it be known and the poor soul is going to be the one who’s the example.”DuVernay recalled that Prince-Bythewood told her to make sure to “let it be known that certain things wouldn’t be tolerated. I remember her telling me that and thinking, ‘I’ll never have that problem’ and of course it used to come up a lot for me. It was only the last couple of films where I started to realize that this doesn’t come up for me as much anymore. And I understand why. It’s because now I’m in a position where I choose who all those people are. But when you’re first starting out you have less domain over the choice of who’s around you. And that’s when you get some knuckleheads who need to have a word or two.”[video_embed id='2034996']ALSO AT TIFF: Shamier Anderson’s FaceTime surprise with Halle Berry sets new standard for TIFF drive-in premieres [/video_embed]DuVernay brings that same unflinching attitude to all her projects, especially in terms of the topics she tackles. “Whenever you can find a story that allows you to interrogate [the criminalization of Black people], that’s something that really intrigues me,” she told Bailey, referencing both her prison system documentary 13th and When They See Us, a dramatization about the wrongful conviction of the Central Park Five.“These boys, all their families were traumatized,” said DuVernay specifically of When The See Us. “When you put one person behind bars, when you convict one person, when you criminalize one person, the effect that has, the tentacles of that accusation on a family, on a community, on a generation. Making a five-hour film was an adventure but it was a form that I embraced because it allowed us to tell this story which is so sprawling... It really allows you to see the expanse and the power of that system on Black people.”

“I’m a storyteller that works a lot with historical narrative. I always feel like we’re in the presence of history, and I don’t understand why people don’t see life that way. This year, people see it that way.” ––@Ava DuVernay on 2020 #TIFF20 pic.twitter.com/ZkJcBhj13L

— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) September 14, 2020

Offering words of wisdom to creatives hoping to follow in her footsteps, she advises them to be unafraid and to feel secure in the knowledge that they belong. “I’ve been in a lot of spaces where I’m the only woman, I’m the only Black person, I’m the only person of colour. I mean, what are you gonna do?” she asked. “You walk in and you bring yourself,” she told Bailey.“In the early days of being in the industry I would walk in feeling like ‘I’m the only one.’ Now I walk in like, ‘Why am I the only one?’" she continued. "The world has changed in that way where you can walk in and say that. We’ve progressed from even 10 years or five years ago. So you should walk in feeling like I’m here and why am I the only one. And it doesn’t have to be antagonistic but it does change your posture—you put the onus of the nervousness on them. Don’t accept that. You’re not walking in as the victim you’re walking in as the victor: ‘I am here, why aren’t there others?’”The 2020 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 10 to September 19.[video_embed id='-1']BEFORE YOU GO: Corgi can't contain excitement at the sound of a crinkled water bottle [/video_embed]