Ava Duvernay to Write, Direct and Produce Film Adaption of New York Times Best Seller ’Caste’ for Netflix

Under her ARRAY Filmworks banner for Netflix, Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee Ava DuVernay will direct, write and produce a new feature film adaptation based on the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club selection, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson. 

Through a multiple-story structure, Caste examines the unspoken system that has shaped America and chronicles how our lives today are defined by a hierarchy of human divisions dating back generations.

Caste marks DuVernay’s next feature project and her first feature film at Netflix, reuniting her with Netflix executive Tendo Nagenda. The pair worked together on Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time, making her the highest grossing Black woman director in American box office history.

The project continues Netflix’s relationship with DuVernay, who was the first Black woman feature director to be nominated for an Academy Award with her acclaimed documentary, 13th, garnering BAFTA, Emmy and Peabody Awards. Most recently, her limited series When They See Us received 16 Emmy nominations. DuVernay is currently producing a limited series for Netflix based on the adolescent life of athlete and activist Colin Kaepernick entitled Colin in Black & White.

DuVernay will produce alongside Sarah Bremner and Paul Garnes of ARRAY Filmworks. 

About Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Warmth of Other Suns. Her debut work won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and was named to Time’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the decade and to The New York Times’s list of the Best Nonfiction of All Time. Her most recent book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, became an instant New York Times bestseller and has been longlisted for the National Book Award. She has taught at Princeton, Emory, and Boston Universities and has lectured at more than two hundred other colleges and universities across the United States and in Europe and Asia.

 About Netflix:

Netflix is the world’s leading streaming entertainment service with 193 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on any internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.

Ava DuVernay headshot (please download)