--- title: Ava DuVernay on Storytelling and What Gives Her Hope description: Ava DuVernay writes about what gives her hope: to know that this present moment will be the past soon and the future is what we will make it. canonical: https://time.com/5087372/ava-duvernay-on-what-gives-her-hope/ author: Ava DuVernay article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-01-04T12:04:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T23:12:19.000Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Ava DuVernay on Storytelling and What Gives Her Hope og:description: Ava DuVernay writes about what gives her hope: to know that this present moment will be the past soon and the future is what we will make it. og:url: https://time.com/5087372/ava-duvernay-on-what-gives-her-hope/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc7d85cbee596265/6988f636929fad7aa9beefe1/optimist-issue-ava-duvernay-what-gives-her-hope.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: optimist-issue-ava-duvernay-what-gives-her-hope og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ava DuVernay on Storytelling and What Gives Her Hope twitter:description: Ava DuVernay writes about what gives her hope: to know that this present moment will be the past soon and the future is what we will make it. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc7d85cbee596265/6988f636929fad7aa9beefe1/optimist-issue-ava-duvernay-what-gives-her-hope.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Ava DuVernay on What Gives Her Hope > Sponsored content. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Ava DuVernay](https://time.com/author/ava-duvernay/) ## Ava DuVernay Updated: Dec 12, 2023 11:12 PM UTCPublished: Jan 4, 2018 12:04 PM UTC  Ava DuVernay Ava DuVernay Jima/Disney Studios by [Ava DuVernay](https://time.com/author/ava-duvernay/) ## Ava DuVernay Updated: Dec 12, 2023 11:12 PM UTCPublished: Jan 4, 2018 12:04 PM UTC I marvel at the times in which we live. A time that will be long-remembered. A time that will be long-studied. The question is: remembered for what? The answer is up to us. As an artist, I’m grateful that I live at a time when access to cameras and distribution platforms and ways to reach audiences outside of the normal Hollywood infrastructure are more possible for me, a black person, a woman, than ever before. My voice as a storyteller and vision as a filmmaker can be amplified without the permission of the privileged few who have held marginalized creators at arm’s distance for decades. There is fresh air circulating, powering a new perspective. It’s not just artists that find ourselves in more dynamic positions of amplification. New platforms have expanded for everyone thanks to a free and open Internet. Right now, if you want to share your opinion, you don’t have to gain access to a reporter and solicit a newspaper article–a long shot by any means. Today, you’re able to express yourself through words and images on a variety of public platforms and make yourself heard and seen. These moments of visibility are vital as we encounter an era of uncertainty, divisiveness and leaderlessness. As a student of history, what gives me hope in these tenuous times is the knowledge that there is precedent for change and there’s precedent for hope. Hope has bred change again and again. To be hopeless is to disregard history. It is to foreground the present moment in a distorted way, one that is pedestrian and unelevated. For we know that the world isn’t only happening now. Everything has happened before. And everything will happen again. And so that’s what gives me hope: to know that this present moment will be the past soon and the future is what we will make it. A future of voices lifted and visions realized. A future of declaring our presence and sharing our opinions unfiltered and unafraid. A future built on reclaiming what has been taken and what has been lost. A future shaped by our striving to answer to the question “remembered for what” with the very best within us. _DuVernay, an Oscar nominee, directed_ Selma_,_ 13th _and the forthcoming_ A Wrinkle in Time ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5087372/ava-duvernay-on-what-gives-her-hope/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5087372/ava-duvernay-on-what-gives-her-hope/"},"headline":"Ava DuVernay on What Gives Her Hope","datePublished":"2018-01-04T12:04:44.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-12T23:12:19.000Z","description":"Ava DuVernay writes about what gives her hope: to know that this present moment will be the past soon and the future is what we will make it.","url":"https://time.com/5087372/ava-duvernay-on-what-gives-her-hope/","keywords":["Optimist"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc7d85cbee596265/6988f636929fad7aa9beefe1/optimist-issue-ava-duvernay-what-gives-her-hope.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ava DuVernay","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ava-duvernay/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc7d85cbee596265/6988f636929fad7aa9beefe1/optimist-issue-ava-duvernay-what-gives-her-hope.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"optimist-issue-ava-duvernay-what-gives-her-hope","caption":"Ava DuVernay","creditText":"Jima/Disney Studios","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/optimist/","name":"Optimist"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5087372/ava-duvernay-on-what-gives-her-hope/","name":"Ava DuVernay on What Gives Her Hope"}}]}] ```