VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-Nominated Director Ava Duvernay On Her New Film ‘Origin,’ The Message Of The Movie

In an exclusive uInterview, director Ava Duvernay discusses the message behind her new film, Origin.

Origin is an adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The film follows the author as she makes sense of her own grief while confronting current events in the United States.

“I’m proud of it,” Duvernay said about the film. “It was really organic. I was reading the book and trying to figure out the most emotional throughline, and that was the story of Isabel Wilkerson herself and what she overcame to write the book.”

“That was the way I approached it,” she continued, “which was a much softer and gentler way than saying ‘I’m going to write a movie about Caste.’ That becomes difficult to wrap your head around, so I just let her be my guide.”

The movie grapples with historical cases of racism and oppression around the world, touching on the Trayvon Martin case and the Dalits in India. Duvernay said that Wilkerson could recognize “something underneath all of the divisions that we experience as human beings.”

“Her central thesis is that cast is the foundation of all the isms that we experience,” Duvernay said. “She sets out on this globetrotting adventure to investigate this in a bunch of different cultures and three different continents. We retraced those steps in the film and, as she is learning about the cast and making connections across time and space, we are learning it as well.”

When asked why she felt it important to release the film when she did, Duvernay referenced the state of national politics and urged viewers to become “alert” as the 2024 election looms.

“We’re in the middle of an election year, deciding about possible transition of power or trying to defend against that,” she said. “I think it’s really important that people shake off any feelings of fatigue they may have… In other parts of the world when there’s an election year, we’re very turned into it and focus conversation around it. Hopefully, Origin can contribute to that conversation.”

Duvernay hopes that the film offers audience members “something.”

“I really just want them to take away what they will. Everyone is in a different place in terms of maturity, intellectual development, background and memories,” she said. “I can’t dictate what someone takes.”

“Some people are very immersed in the stories of grief and what they take from the film is a comfort, a connection or a solidarity with other people who are in mourning,” she continued. “Some people take revelations about history that they didn’t know. Other people take poignancy about the romances and the love stories in the film. All of them are valid, all of them are there for the taking, and the hope is that the offering is accepted in whatever way works for you.”