Ignore the glass ceiling and do your work. If you're focusing on the glass ceiling, focusing on what you don't have, focusing on the limitations, then you will be limited. My way was to work, make my short... make my documentary... make my small films... use my own money... raise money myself... and stay shooting and focused on each project.

Hollywood needs more women directors, and Mama Ava needs a carafe and a half of that sweet vino divino.

If you have the ability to do something, you should do it.

By the end of the documentary [ '13th'], you really understand what prison is, what the prison industrial complex is, where this whole Black Lives Matter movement comes from, the history of resistance, the history of how politicians have used criminality over the decades for a particular political gain. It's to give people an understanding of it so they can make their own decisions about how they want to be in the world.

Figure out what you need to do to be the heroine of your own story.

Because my mom always told me that I could. From a very early age, I felt comfortable leading.

If you're doing something outside of dominant culture there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.