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Ava DuVernay鈥檚 directorial work often shines a light on the darkest chapters of history in the United States. In the 2014 biopic Selma, DuVernay depicts Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.鈥檚 campaign to secure equal voting rights. When They See Us, an Emmy-winning Netflix miniseries, examines the 1989 Central Park jogger case through the lives of the five Black and Latino boys who were wrongly convicted of the crime. The documentary 13th studies the parasitic relationship between mass incarceration in the United States and white supremacy.

Her latest film, Origin, calls on all the storytelling tools in her filmography. Based on Isabel Wilkerson鈥檚 best-selling book , Origin unearths unnerving truths about the connection between power and subjugation. DuVernay casts Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Wilkerson, the narrative hero inspired to embark on an intensive sociological study after Trayvon Martin鈥檚 murder by George Zimmerman.

鈥淭his is a film that asks people to center a woman鈥檚 interiority and her intellect,鈥� the director told . 鈥淲e are offered those films with men at the center often.鈥� Origin鈥檚 theme鈥攔adical intellectual discovery鈥攁lso applies to DuVernay鈥檚 journey to adapt the book.

Independently funded, the making of Origin is a testament to the director鈥檚 creative integrity and agility, delivering a multidisciplinary experience that circumvents Hollywood鈥檚 traditional hierarchical system.

After , the streamer planned to begin shooting in 2024. DuVernay pushed for an earlier timeline that would enable the film to galvanize audiences with a sense of urgency and spark political and cultural discourse.

鈥淢y hope is that it instigates some conversation about things we should be focusing on in this country as we head toward an election鈥攈ey, anybody see we鈥檙e taking books off shelves? Women can鈥檛 control their own bodies? Are we going to do something? I felt an urgency around getting it out there,鈥� she told . 鈥淭hat timeline was a little more escalated than [Netflix] had the appetite for, and they were good enough to let it go.鈥�

When Netflix declined to expedite the film鈥檚 production, DuVernay and the company parted ways, prompting the filmmaker and her producing partner, Paul Garnes, to obtain independent financing through philanthropic sources including the Ford Foundation and Melinda French Gates鈥� Pivotal Ventures.

The pivot allowed DuVernay鈥檚 team to embrace an unprecedented filmmaking model鈥攐ne rooted in sociopolitical reform and untethered from white capitalist interests.

The Risk Pays Off

Investors like the Ford Foundation typically provide funds for documentaries, but DuVernay鈥檚 new financial backers were aligned with her vision. The director was given a full budget that granted her the final say on vital decisions, including and the film鈥檚 final cut.

For marginalized filmmakers working within the studio system, limited creative autonomy follows a larger pattern of sexist, racist, and ableist industry beliefs about marketability, profitability, and . By taking the indie route, Origin resists the need to meet studio demands historically rooted in discrimination, bigotry, and the white gaze.

This new framework can also help filmmakers鈥攑articularly marginalized creatives鈥攕urvive within an industry that鈥檚 increasingly vulnerable to , , and .

鈥淲e鈥檙e all flailing, trying to figure out what the next steps are for a healthy industry,鈥� DuVernay told . 鈥淎nd I think that is an opportunity for folks to come in with fresh ideas and try to make new systems鈥攏ot just exist within and act differently within the old system.鈥�

While taking an uncharted route resulted in multiple benefits, the absence of major studio backing brought unforeseen challenges, such as coordinating the talent鈥檚 filming schedules (Niecy Nash-Betts, who plays Wilkerson鈥檚 cousin, was filming ABC鈥檚 The Rookie: Feds in Los Angeles at the same time) and working out the logistics of shooting on location for scenes like a Nazi book burning. 

DuVernay filmed on Berlin鈥檚 Bebelplatz, where German university students gathered in 1933 with lit torches to by authors such as Albert Einstein and Helen Keller. The public square is now the site of a memorial. For the scene, the flying of Nazis swastikas, a symbol that has been . 

There was also the challenge of an expedited timeline; typically, a scene like this, featuring a few thousand extras, takes three days to film, but .

Retaining Authenticity

Switching to an indie-funding method allowed DuVernay to take other risks she may not have been able to. She cast Ellis-Taylor in her first leading role in a major movie and depicts Wilkerson as a scholar and visionary intellectual鈥攁 role typically reserved for white men, e.g., Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon (The Da Vinci Code), Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer. 

By both casting Ellis-Taylor and centering Wilkerson as the main character, DuVernay defied studio conventions dictated by Hollywood鈥檚 version of a caste system: a hierarchy determined by factors like social media popularity, age, gender, and physical appearance.

Other choices, like wardrobe and narrative structure, were rooted in DuVernay鈥檚 artistic vision, which aimed to transform historical moments and obscure figures into fully realized people. In the later half of the movie, Wilkerson travels to India to research the country鈥檚 caste system, focusing on the group known as the Dalits.

DuVernay shows a Dalit man cleaning human excrement from a public latrine by hand. It was essential for Origin to retain its sense of authenticity, so with the help of an advocacy group, the director . It鈥檚 an effectively heart-wrenching manifestation of Wilkerson鈥檚 impressive research, personifying the degradation that Caste describes.

This attention to character interiority rings especially true in the on-screen portrayal of Wilkerson, who grappled with the loss of her mother, cousin, and husband while writing Caste. Wilkerson鈥檚 grief is captured through understated moments of reflection that connect her to the subjects of her book.

In one powerful scene, Wilkerson interviews a white man who recalls a painful childhood memory. In 1951, the man was on a Little League baseball team in Youngstown, Ohio. His teammate, Al Bright, was the only Black child on the team. After winning the city championship, the team is treated to a pool party, but Bright is ordered to sit on the grass behind a chain-link fence while the other children enjoy the water.

Bright鈥檚 coach eventually convinces the pool attendants to let him swim, but the workers force everyone out of the pool before Bright can join.

As Bright is pulled around on an inflatable pool float, the white lifeguard warns him that if he touches the water, the entire pool will have to be drained. It鈥檚 an emotionally harrowing moment that depicts a loss of childhood innocence鈥擝right and his teammates may not have had the elevated language to describe this injustice, but they鈥檙e all impacted by the dehumanizing sanctions imposed by the U.S. version of caste.

The man鈥檚 story resonates with Wilkerson; she imagines herself lying next to Bright on the ground, attempting to provide reassurance that this trauma will not define his identity.

The scene was originally structured around a voice-over by Wilkerson, but when DuVernay discovered the actor playing Bright鈥檚 teammate had a personal connection to the scene, she allowed him to improvise the narration. These sorts of creative redirections wouldn鈥檛 have been as warmly encouraged by studio executives, though these tweaks are ultimately pivotal to the film鈥檚 visceral storytelling and characterization.

A New Way to Humanize History

Origin also rejects strictly chronological storytelling to weave biographical narrative and nonfiction research together. The film introduces the photograph of a German man, believed to be , refusing to perform the Nazi salute in a crowd of people in 1936. Wilkerson travels to Germany to further explore how chattel slavery and segregation in the U.S. influenced the ideologies of Hitler鈥檚 Nazi regime. 

While pouring through German historical archives, Wilkerson learns about the groundbreaking research of Allison and Elizabeth Davis, two married Black anthropologists whose landmark work in Depression-era Mississippi, Deep South, detailed how race and class inform the concept of caste in the U.S. In 1933, the couple travels to Berlin, where they witness a frenzied crowd burn piles of books.

Then, in the present, Wilkerson attends a dinner with friends, and they discuss the similarities and differences between Nazi Germany and the cultural and political history of white supremacy in the U.S. One of the women argues the Holocaust was 鈥渨orse鈥� than the enslavement of Black people in the U.S., which further motivates Wilkerson to excavate and document the pieces of 鈥渃ollective tissue鈥� that form the concept of the caste system.

Moving fluidly through the past and present, Wilkerson鈥檚 research follows a line of pioneering scholars before her, who sought to understand how caste perpetuates individual and collective trauma. DuVernay鈥檚 directorial choices support Wilkerson鈥檚 thesis: Oppression in the past provides the blueprint for the brutality of the present, and these forces feed off one another.

In a striking sequence near the end of the film, enslaved Africans are trapped on a ship during the Middle Passage while a voice-over by Wilkerson laments how slavery caused the erasure of entire communities. Then, we flash to a concentration camp, where a Jewish mother is tearfully separated from her son.

There are also images of Trayvon Martin in his final moments, further underscoring the connection between anti-Black racism in the present and the antisemitism that fueled the Holocaust. Both moments in time are stitched together by violence: The Jewish mother is shot in the head by a Nazi guard, while Martin is fatally shot by Zimmerman. 

Wilkerson ties together the seemingly disconnected topics of white supremacy in America, the rise of the Third Reich in Nazi Germany, and the 鈥渦ntouchables鈥� of the caste system in India. In the film, Wilkerson鈥檚 international trips allow her to better understand the caste system and how it fuels global oppression.

DuVernay鈥檚 decision to prioritize narrative authenticity and shoot on location further emphasized the lack of hierarchy during the creative process. Matthew J. Lloyd, who worked as the film鈥檚 director of photography, labeled completed footage by their geographical location rather than the traditional method of letters and numbers.

This contributed to the idea of filmmaking as a collective endeavor that gives creatives equal rank and respect, as opposed to the standard protocol of clear-cut title rankings.

鈥淲hen the playing field is open, everybody鈥檚 contribution elevates,鈥� Lloyd told The Hollywood Reporter. 鈥淵ou feel the freedom to contribute.鈥� DuVernay鈥檚 on-set environment offers a sharp contrast to how Hollywood typically operates, continuously leaving marginalized people from directing and acting to writing and producing. 

While Barbie, , , and other box-office successes proved audiences desire on-screen , women and minority groups still lack the their white male counterparts are routinely given. This is particularly true behind the camera: According to by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, only four directors (3.4%) of the top 100 films in 2023 were women of color.

Origin鈥檚 unconventional approach to filmmaking proves Black creatives can still reach creative heights without major studio backing. DuVernay鈥檚 film prioritizes the power of lived experiences and the spirit of Wilkerson鈥檚 research; the final product wouldn鈥檛 exist if left to the demands of white executives who obey algorithms and buy into social media hype. Though DuVernay didn鈥檛 intend to follow the indie route, Origin excels because it鈥檚 a true labor of egalitarian artistry.  

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