'Selma' director cancels talk for University Speaker Series
"Selma" director Ava DuVernay cancelled her March 21 speech Wednesday.
DuVernay cancelled her University Speaker Series event due to a family emergency.
Keith Voeks, interim director of university events, said plans are in the works to reschedule DuVernay.
"The university has been reassured we will be able to find a new date next school year to bring her back and perform here," Voeks said.
Voeks said talks to bring DuVernay back to CMU will begin in April.
"There is a clause in her contract that states in the event of something unforeseen happening like this, we would renegotiate a new date for the same terms of the old contract," Voeks said.
The only money lost was "a few hundred dollars" due to advertising, Voeks said. A refund of everything paid will not be made unless DuVernay terminates the contract.
Voeks did not disclose the amount DuVernay will be paid for speaking, citing a "confidentially clause" within her contract.
In 2010, DuVernay founded ARRAY, an independent film distribution and resource collective which hopes to broaden the reach of films made by women and people of color globally.
DuVernay has earned a Sundance Film Festival Best Director Award for her dramatic feature "Middle of Nowhere," and directed a 2008 hip-hop documentary "This is the Life." The event is co-sponsored by both Residence Life and the Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion.
The second speaker for the University Speaker Series, Dr. Nina Tandon, the CEO and co-founder of EpiBone, is still scheduled to speak at 7:30 p.m. on March 21 in Plachta Auditorium.
