Ava DuVernay to receive Geneva Film Festival honorary award

US filmmaker Ava DuVernay will receive the honorary Film & Beyond Award at the 30^th edition of Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF).

DuVernay will accept her award in-person at the event, where she will participate in a talk about her career.

The festival, which runs from November 1-10, 2024, is also playing a programme of DuVernay’s work.

Having worked extensively as a publicist in Hollywood, DuVernay directed her first feature This Is The Life, a documentary about the alternative hip hop MCs who came through the Good Life Cafe in Los Angeles, in 2008.

After her fiction feature debut I Will Follow in 2010, she broke out internationally with 2014 Martin Luther King Jr. biopic Selma, which was nominated for the best picture Oscar.

DuVernay has directed seven features, including 2018 fantasy A Wrinkle In Time for Disney, and 2023’s Origin, which made her the first Black woman to have a film compete at Venice in the festival’s 80-year history.

She founded production company Array in 2010, aiming to forefront stories from marginalised communities.

“Our festival and its audience will certainly take inspiration from the courage and artistic impact of a multi-disciplinary artist who has not hesitated to control the entire creative process of her works,” said GIFF’s executive and artistic director Anais Emery.

Previous Film & Beyond Award recipients include Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Abel Ferrara, Park Chan-wook and last year’s recipient Jean-Michel Jarre.

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