NYFF: Ava DuVernay, with assists from Van Jones and others, makes a potential prison game-changer

In just a short while, the press screening for the opening-night film of the 2016 New York Film Festival will begin. Members of the media will see "13th," the Ava DuVernay documentary about mass incarceration that was shot stealthily over the last year or so for Netflix. The movie brings a different feel to the annual gathering, which usually opens with a high-profile awards contender like "Captain Phillips" or "Life of Pi." "13th" traces the post-slavery history of African Americans in the United States, up to and including the corporatization of the prison industry that, the film argues, has had as many devastating effects on the black community and the country's moral fabric as slavery itself. It also marks a switch for DuVernay, who in films such as "Middle of Nowhere" and "Selma," has been exploring minority discrimination from the other side of the feature-doc divide. "It's always something on my mind," DuVernay said Thursday in an interview from the set of her new movie "A Wrinkle in Time," noting earlier films and characters, such as Ralph Bordelon and Too Sweet in her OWN series "Queen Sugar," that address the human side of imprisonment.