"We are in the presence of history": Ava DuVernay feels in the air "the vibrations" of these "strange and important" times that we are experiencing.
From the Toronto International Film Festival, running until Saturday in the capital of Ontario, the director of films like "Selma," about Martin Luther King's civil rights march in Alabama that paved the way for black voting, said convinced 2020 was an epochal year that will be remembered for a long time.
"People understood that. We will remember where we were and who we were with - he said - for the rest of our lives".
DuVernay made it to the streaming master class due to Coronavirus with a series of historical films including, in addition to "Selma", the five-part Netflix series "When They See Us" about the 'Central Park Five' trial. : Five black youths falsely accused of rape of a white 'jogger' in a 1989 news story that divided New York City.
In 2016 Ava then shot the documentary "13th" on the "intersection of race, justice and mass incarceration" in the US: the film takes its name from the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution which in 1865 abolished slavery.
These are all very topical issues in light of the police violence that triggered the protests of the Black Lives Matter movement.
"It will be interesting - added the director during the video-meeting - to see what the filmmakers of 2020 will do, since every news story is recorded for posterity with cell phones and body-cams".
Like the video that captured the agony of black George Floyd, asphyxiated under the knee of a white policeman in Minneapolis, in 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
In 2014 the Oscar denied to "Selma" sparked the #OscarSoWhite controversy which in recent weeks has led to the first substantive reforms by the Academy of Motion Pictures to increase the representativeness of minority films in the canon of awards.
"The world has changed", admitted the director who recently joined the Academy board: "I used to often go to an event where I was the only woman, the only black person in the room: now when it happens to me I'm amazed. 'What's wrong with you?' ".