Tag: Ava DuVernay

Decatur native Omar Dorsey might be best known as Hollywood on Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar, but he's also had roles in Drumline, Selma, Ray Donovan, Eastbound & Down, and now Harriet, the new feature film about the life of Harriet Tubman.

Tyler Perry marked the opening of his new, 330-acre Tyler Perry Studios at Fort McPherson with a gala that brought a monumental number of stars, including everyone from Oprah to Hank Aaron to Beyoncé to Andrew Young.

Selma director Ava DuVernay shot her new film about the civil rights movement’s 1965 bloody march to voting equality in just six weeks this summer in Atlanta and Alabama. Scheduled to open in limited release on Christmas Day, Selma stars David Oyelowo as MLK, Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, Andre Holland as Andrew Young, and Stephan James as a young John Lewis. We talked with DuVernay in the fall, when she took a break from the editing room to discuss the film.

This June, Ava DuVernay, director of Selma—the long-delayed movie about a pivotal period in the life of Martin Luther King Jr.—stood at the front of historic Wheat Street Baptist Church. She was preparing for a scene featuring Stephan James, the Canadian actor who plays civil rights legend John Lewis. “My back was turned to the door when suddenly Stephan’s eyes got big,” DuVernay said.