When Queen Sugar was first announced in 2016, creator Ava DuVernay revealed a commitment to hire exclusively female directors. As the OWN family drama prepares its seventh and final season, it is delivering on that promise.
The series, from DuVernay’s Array Filmworks, Harpo Films and studio Warner Bros. TV, is currently filming in and around New Orleans with a lineup of seven directors from previous seasons, all female. Over the course of seven seasons, the show has employed a total of 42 female directors, 39 of which were first-time scripted TV directors in the US. Queen Sugar opportunity for directorial appearances in other shows and films.
rather in Queen SugarDuring the run, DuVernay got wind of a few male Directors Guild of America members who reportedly disagreed with her decision to focus only on female directors. Her response, which she revealed in a fervent acceptance speech at the 2018 Gloria Awards: “I invite you to tell whoever feels discriminated against to sue me so I can sue any studio that has excluded women,” she said at the time. , adding the significance of her initiative: “Why did we do this? Because we can. Because we can create spaces that feed in our own image, in the same way our male counterparts have created in their its own image for more than a century.”
The series finale, part of a season that kicks off this fall, will be hosted by DuVernay himself, much like the pilot episode was six years earlier. Other protagonists in the final season include Kat Candler, Stacey Muhammad, showrunner Shaz Bennett, Patricia Cardoso, Aurora Guerrero, and DeMane Davis.