Ava DuVernay is an American filmmaker and film distributor. She won the directing award in the U.S. dramatic competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for her second feature film Middle of Nowhere, becoming the first black woman to win the award

She is the creator and Executive Producer of Queen Sugar, she chose to give the character Violet (known as ‘Aunt Vi’) the autoimmune disease lupus and revealed for the first time that she too had lupus.

She added “I’ve been in remission for 20 years, but I did want to make sure that we create spaces to talk about it. We wanted to really give that chronic illness to Vi and show you can live and you can battle through it, you can continue to thrive, but you have to manage it.”