Filmmaker Ava DuVernay has opened up a brand new movie theater in L.A.’s Historic Filipinotown to help people of color showcase their work.
The Amanda Theater, named after DuVernay’s late aunt Denise Amanda Sexton, will be hosting Array 360 screening series to highlight movies made by and featuring women and people of color. The films will include work from director John Singleton and two by French New Wave icon Agnès Varda.
In a statement to The LA Times DuVernay says“The idea was to be disruptive in every system within which artists, especially artists of color and women, have to work in this industry,” she said. “Every system has roadblocks for people like us, whether it is in the acquisition, production, distribution, exhibition, marketing, crewing up. So what we were looking to do was disrupt those systems so that we create normalcy and momentum.”
The campus also includes Array Releasing, a for-profit distribution company DuVernay launched nine years ago to acquire and release independent movies.
