The Next Ava DuVernay? Hollywood producer’s new nonprofit to boost diverse creators
Photo: Michael Kovac/Getty/Illustration: EEW Magazine
By EEW Magazine Online // Diversity // People
We love and celebrate our finest Black creatives like award-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay, but there are not enough like her.
Just three in 10 film directors are Black, Latino, Asian-American, multiracial, or Native American. And only a third of film writers are people of color, according to a recent study by the University of California at Los Angeles.
But, Hollywood film producer Dan Lin — known for movies such as Disney’s live action “Aladdin” and “The Two Popes” — is on a mission to help more people of color create and produce film, television, digital, and audio projects.
“There’s no shortage of talented, diverse creators, artists, and entrepreneurs,” said Lin, founder and CEO of the film and television company Rideback. “The only scarcity is opportunity, the funding and the risk-taking that’s always existed at the center of this Hollywood content machine. We’re really determined to break through these restricted access points, enlarge the funnel, and activate more creatives of color.”
Rideback Rise, the company’s nonprofit arm, which is launching with more than $1 million from the Ford and MacArthur foundations as well as several other philanthropies and hopes to raise $2 million in total this year, will oversee a fellowship program for writers, directors, podcast creators, and other artists of color selected each year who want to launch a project.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
