Ava DuVernay builds Netflix’s 14th around 50 interviews

Ava DuVernay returns to constitutional documentary with 14th, a Netflix film structured around 50 interviews, according to a Guardian film interview published Nov. 8.

The film comes 10 years after DuVernay’s Oscar-nominated 13th and shifts the legal focus from slavery’s constitutional exception to birthright citizenship and other 14th Amendment protections.

DuVernay said the project began after President Trump’s January 2025 executive order targeting birthright citizenship. “Oh no. I never thought I’d do 14th until I heard they were trying to rescind birthright citizenship,” she said.

“I mean, one of the bedrocks of America is that if you were born in America, you’re an American. Now it was going to change? Just the sheer audacity and absurdity of that propelled me to look deeper into how we got here,” DuVernay said.

She described the production as a way to channel fear and anger during what she called “a very tough two years” in Los Angeles. “I live in Los Angeles, and I’ve seen people in my neighbourhood pulled out of their cars,” she said.

DuVernay told The Guardian she first expected to make a documentary focused on birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment’s first and best-known section. After a full year of research and travel, she said the film widened to other sections of the amendment.

“We started to see that, systematically, the other parts were also being attacked. It felt like such a design, so purposeful, that I thought there’s something here …” she said.

The interview places 14th in DuVernay’s broader body of rights-focused work, including Selma, 13th and When They See Us. The new film includes interviews with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hasan Piker, Yale historian David W. Blight, Anna Paulina Luna, Donald Critchlow and Jeff Flake, according to the Guardian.

DuVernay said she sought ideological and generational range, including conservative participants. She said more than 300 requests went to sitting members of Congress, senators, Republican governors and Republican mayors of major cities, but only a handful accepted.

“To me, it really speaks to the strategic choice by Republicans to preach to the choir,” DuVernay said. “These are not conversations they see any reason to have outside a certain sphere.”

The film gives particular weight to legal scholar Sherrilyn Ifill, who founded the 14th Amendment Center for Law and Democracy at Howard University in 2025. DuVernay called Ifill “the Meryl Streep of 14th” and said she interviewed her for six hours.

Source: interview, The Guardian – Film, Nov. 8, 2026