The treatment of Ava DuVernay’s Origin last year still sticks in my craw. The brilliant reimagining of Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents featured an outstanding lead performance by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and ended up on a lot of “Best of the Year” lists. It was admittedly always going to be a tough sell, being a movie about race and caste systems around the world, but that’s what you get a distributor like NEON to handle. Unfortunately, NEON dropped the ball, and apparently that fact sticks in DuVernay’s craw, too.
Speaking at the Marrakech International Film Festival (via Deadline), DuVernay talked about her “complicated” feelings about Origin and the lessons she learned from the way her film was handled…
“It represents a big challenge and it’s part of a big lesson I’ve received as a filmmaker,” she said. “Ed Zwick, the director, said that a film’s success is not judged by the box office and reviews but by time, and I hope that time will be kind to this film.”
Speaking about NEON’s role in Origin‘s limited visibility, DuVernay said “It had difficulties finding an audience. It had lackluster distribution and a challenging market because of the subject matter. It came right at the beginning of the tragedy in Palestine and it talks about genocide, racism, Islamophobia, a lot of tough subjects that were uncomfortable for people.”
She continued, “It hurts to make something and put all your love into it and it can’t quite reach the audience. I have to believe in time. Hopefully, this film will be found later.”
When thinking about the next time she has to find distribution for a film she’s put so much of herself into, DuVernay said “I chose NEON to do it and it was not the right choice for this film. I will make a better choice next time.”
I was excited when Origin went to NEON as they usually know what they’re doing during awards season. But they fumbled the job badly with confusing trailers that obscured what the movie was about, leading to minimal buzz and ultimately zero Oscar nominations.
Origin is available now on streaming. If you haven’t seen it, take time out to watch one of last year’s best and smartest movies.
