‘I’ve seen people in my neighbourhood pulled out of their cars’: Ava DuVernay on the cruelty and brutality of Trump’s America

Ten years after her landmark political documentary 13th, the film-maker delivers a follow-up on the 14th amendment – and the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle birthright citizenship

When I ask Ava DuVernay how she kept her focus while making her new film – or how anyone does, when the onslaught of news, fake news and disputed facts seems designed to overwhelm – she starts to answer, then stops. Her eyes have filled with tears.

“I just got emotional, as you said that, because it was the film that saved me,” she says. “It’s been a very tough two years. I live in Los Angeles, and I’ve seen people in my neighbourhood pulled out of their cars. The lady who sells flowers next to my office was there one day, and the next day she wasn’t. People I know personally are literally hiding in their houses, like Anne Frank vibes … So when I would feel the rage and the fear, I put it into the film … And I just … I was doing something.”

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