Award season is a time when many stars are given their flowers. But for other worthy contenders, it can be a frustrating period, despite their best efforts. Director Ava DuVernay used Instagram to shine light on one contender, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor—who, after being widely ignored for her work in DuVernay’s Origin, took to the streets of Los Angeles to personally promote the film.
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DuVernay reposted a video of Ellis-Taylor outside an AMC, wearing a mask, passing out fliers for Origin, DuVernay’s film adaptation of Pulitzer Prize–winner Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The film came out in theaters in limited release on September 6 and is set to go wide on January 19. “What I was caught doing was passing out postcards for Origin,” said Ellis-Taylor in the video. “Miss Wilkerson wrote a book about how we continue to divide ourselves and treat each other horribly based on these ridiculous, absurd means. Her book is a way of disrupting that, giving us a new language to talk about race. I believe in this book so much, and I believe in this film so much, which is why I wanted to be in it, and I want everyone to come see it.”
The footage of Ellis-Taylor handing out fliers made DuVernay “burst into tears,” the director wrote.
“This was apparently taken last Sunday, Golden Globes day,” she continued. “This is a video of Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Our lead actress in Origin. She wasn’t nominated that day. She was handing out postcards for our film at a local AMC in LA to passersby. She had told me that she wanted to remind herself about what matters. That she wanted to invite people to see our work, and that she would stay low profile, keep on her mask. That it wasn’t about her, but about the movie.”
While it received early Oscar buzz, Origin has mostly flatlined this award season, with DuVernay and the film being ignored by major voting bodies like the Critics Choice Awards and SAG Awards, as well as year-end top-ten lists like the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute. An Oscar nominee for helming the prison industrial complex documentary 13th, DuVernay was nominated for a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for directing Origin, and is still up for a Black Reel Award for best director. Origin took home the audience award for narrative feature at the Virginia Film Festival.
Ellis-Taylor, a recent Oscar nominee as best supporting actress for her role in King Richard, has also been left out of the award conversation for her portrayal of Wilkerson, having only been nominated for outstanding leading performance at the Gotham Awards and at the Black Reel Awards.
“I wish she was at the Globes or SAG Awards or Critics Choice or the other nominations that didn’t come,” continued DuVernay in her Instagram caption. “I wish she had commercials and magazine covers and all the things that are arranged for the actresses we are supposed to pay attention to in the awards season. I wish she felt the recognition and praise that swirls around her peers in big studio films. I wish the world for her. All the flowers. All the gold statues. I wish so many things.”
Although DuVernay is dismayed by Ellis-Taylor’s exclusion from the awards season conversation, she ended her Instagram caption on a positive, hopeful note. “But in this video, she reminds me to move from wishing to what matters,” writes DuVernay. “And what matters is WHY WE MADE THIS FILM and WHY WE DO THIS WORK. For people. To be in community with others. To reach for someone else’s hand and recognize oneself. To tell stories of human dignity and justice.”
To close, DuVernay commended her leading lady for having a “brave heart” and being “the definition of a best lead actress.”
“You lead me away from wishing for things not meant to be,” wrote DuVernay, “To focus on the beauty of what matters and what is.”
