Ava DuVernay faced a daunting task in bringing “Selma” to the big screen. The drama, about the 1965 Civil Rights marches in Alabama to demand voting rights for blacks, had already been through several directors by the time she came on board.
Adding to the challenges, Martin Luther King Jr.’s estate would not grant the team behind the film permission to use hisย iconic speeches. Still, DuVernay managed to put together a critically acclaimed drama which debuted strongly at the box office this weekend after Paramount Pictures rolled it outย in limited release. And thanks to “Selma,”ย DuVernayย recently made history as the first African-American woman nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the motion picture directing category.