Ava DuVernay on Her Latest Doc ’14th’

With the midterm elections coming up, Ava DuVernay’s latest documentary, “14th,” arrives at a pivotal time for the United States. Unlike the other buzzy films this season, it doesn’t tackle the dangers of AI or examine tech billionaires. Instead, it explores the 14th Amendment and its vital role in the fabric of American democracy.

“14th” focuses on the constitutional amendment that established birthright citizenship, due process and equal protection under the law. The film argues that those foundational principles — along with the amendment’s prohibition against those who engage in insurrection serving as heads of state — have come under unprecedented pressure in recent years.

Through interviews with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), legal scholars Sherrilyn Ifill and Robert Chang, Stacey Abrams, social commentators Donald T. Critchlow and Hasan Piker and others, DuVernay explores the amendment’s history and contemporary implications.

The Netflix film is set to close the New York Film Festival and will begin streaming on Dec. 9.

Variety sat down with DuVernay and editor-producer Spencer Averick to discuss their collaboration on the film, releasing a decade after DuVernay’s documentary “13th,” which examines the U.S. Constitution’s 13th Amendment. “13th” was released just weeks before Donald Trump was elected to his first term as president.

This marks your return to documentary features after ‘Origin.’ What was the trigger for ‘14th’?

AVA DUVERNAY: We’ve gone through a decade of Trump. When we were making “14th,” he was not yet president for the second time. But the world has changed. In that decade, there’s been an uptick in attacks on our democracy that captured my interest, particularly around conversations about who is an American.

Something said starkly by one of our commentators, Van Lathan Jr., is that if being born in America or going through the naturalization process doesn’t dictate that you’re American, then what does? Over the last decade, we’ve seen forces emerge that want to dictate what being American means. That’s at odds with our founding documents. At its core, this documentary is about the fact that we’re in the midst of something very sinister — something very dangerous — and we all need to be aware of it.

Spencer, at what point did you get the call from Ava?

SPENCER AVERICK: We had been talking about Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship, and it started before he was elected. He was talking about this in interviews, and it started to become a concrete threat as he got closer to being elected. He was attacking the Constitution, attacking immigration and it slowly became an attack on the 14th Amendment.

It was never our intention to follow up ‘13th’ with this, but it led us to dig into it more and it organically became the next film.

How did the ‘Lost Cause’ become the narrative thread of ’14th’?

AVERICK: This story is about the battle over the 14th Amendment. The Civil War happened, there was a truce and there was a promise after the war. The resolution of the war was these amendments, the 14th Amendment specifically.

Immediately, there was pushback. It came in all forms: violent, legislative and cultural. The cultural war against the 14th Amendment and against Reconstruction was underneath everything — it was sneaky and hidden. It was in the form of the “Lost Cause,” which celebrated the Confederacy and the side that wanted to keep slavery alive and it continued through the 20th century.

DUVERNAY: With “13th,” Michelle Alexander had written this thesis in “The New Jim Crow” that there was a loophole in the amendment that had led to mass incarceration. We followed that, and it opened up this beautiful storyline.

The 14th Amendment, however, has five parts and one of the parts has three subsections. When I think about how sprawling it is, we had to go back to the beginning: how did it come to be?

The answer to the 14th Amendment was the “Lost Cause.” That became the beating heart of the opposition to the 14th Amendment. We might have called it the “Lost Cause” in 1876 or the early 1900s, but today, it’s called MAGA. It’s rooted in the idea that there’s a hierarchy to being an American — that some people are more capable, more deserving than others — which is the exact opposite of what the 14th Amendment stands for.

Stacey Abrams, AOC, Steve Schmidt, Dr. David Blight are among the many talking heads who feature in the doc. How did you navigate who to include?

DUVERNAY: We had some people that we wanted, and Tammy Garnes did the deep research. A big part of what Spencer and I were looking for was not just someone who knew the information, but someone who could convey it in a way that was not just accessible but entertaining.

Let’s face it — it’s a film about the Constitution. It’s not “Jack Reacher.” It’s probably some of the driest subject matter you can read on paper. But we knew that underneath, it had this pulsing life that governs how we spend our days.

One of the things I love about Spencer’s editing is that he might have seven people explaining the same thing, but he cuts it together in a way that feels alive. He finds the moments when people are excited.

AVERICK: It might seem difficult when you have 50-plus people talking to choose the right voices. But Sherrilyn Ifill served as our narrator, and she guided us through. We also had people talking about specific topics. David Blight was our master on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Adam Dombey was our expert on the “Lost Cause.” Jelani Cobb was a master on the Mother Emanuel situation. Everyone had their moment, and it created a nice handoff throughout the film.

I’m curious: Did you go out to Republicans and ask them to participate in this?

DUVERNAY: We made over 300 requests to every sitting Republican congressperson, senator, governor and mayor of a major city. These weren’t just sent to general mailboxes but to the heads of their communications departments. The Republicans who participated in the movie were Sen. Jeff Flake and Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. We also included Donald Critchlow, a conservative author and pundit. They were the only ones who said yes out of those 300 requests. Many gave polite declines, but the majority didn’t get back. I needed those voices in the film. I wanted to hear their side of the story. I’m afraid we’re in a time where people only want to speak to the choir. I didn’t want to speak to the choir. I wanted those voices, and they were invited and they did not accept the invitation.

What is your call to action?

AVERICK: In the film, we mirror the Reconstruction era, which was a mess. The North and South had just fought one of the bloodiest battles ever because they couldn’t agree. After the war, there was a group of people inside and outside the government who decided to create this new government with this new document.

One thing that we can do is look to that moment in history and look within ourselves. Frederick Douglass was not in the government, but he pushed, prodded, spoke and taught. He got out there.

We had a more robust call-to-action section in the film, but we decided to shorten it to make it more powerful. We wanted to ask the audience to view themselves as founders and framers of this time — a time that, unfortunately, mirrors the period after the Civil War.

DUVERNAY: The bottom line is we can vote, and everybody should vote. But one of the things I learned through making this is you can vote, but then you’ve got to follow up on what those people do. Attend council meetings, monitor their records and know the details beyond more than what they’re saying in a campaign.

But beyond that, forget the politicians. What are you doing at the community level? Do you know your neighbor? Are you talking to people about views? Do you know someone in your life who doesn’t watch the news? How can you keep them informed?

When AOC says this is about the people governing, she’s right. We’re not doing that as a country right now. We elect leaders, then turn away and let things happen to us.

We need a more informed electorate. Politicians need to know that if they don’t speak for the people, they won’t be in that seat next time. We have politicians that are advocating for us, but they’re taking their cues from the people. The way that we function, and for most of all of our adult life, you elect someone and then whatever they decide for you is what happens. When we look back at history, that is not the way this government was set up. That is not how our systems of checks and balances and community participation work.

The Daughters of the Confederacy didn’t wait for the President to tell them what to do. They attended local school board meetings and made things happen.

We’re in such a mess right now that it’s going to take everyone paying attention and helping us move out of this house.

How did you know when to end the film, given the constant news cycle?

DUVERNAY: We ran out of time.

AVERICK: It was a living, evolving edit. As it was happening — Trump attacking voting rights, birthright citizenship and other parts of the amendment — it felt like a barrage of attacks. How do we wrangle all this and synthesize it into the end of the film? And unfortunately, he did attack every single section of the 14th Amendment and when he did, we realized that we had an ending and we were able to fill in each section with his attack and the ramifications of the attack and how it relates to history. We were on it for a long time, and we got to a point where we had the pencils down and we both felt really good about it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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