Ava DuVernay continued the rollout for the 14th, the documentary feature she has produced and directed at Netflix, this evening in London, where the film screened as the Special Documentary Presentation at the London Film Festival.

The film arrived in London following its debut bow at the New York Film Festival on October 9.

“I jumped straight on a plane and came here to see how these ideas feel in another country,” DuVernay told the packed-out London crowd as she introduced the film.

As it turns out, DuVernay’s ideas were exactly what the LFF audience had been looking for. The LA-based filmmaker and her producers, Tammy Garnes and Paul Garnes, were given a lengthy, impassioned standing ovation as they walked on stage for a post-screening Q&A session with BFI programmer Grace Barber-Plentie (Standing ovations are pretty rare at the LFF, where audiences are passionate but rarely emotive).

The film, which arrives ten years after DuVernay’s Emmy Award-winning 13th, details how the 14th Amendment and its foundational principles of birthright citizenship, due process, equal protection under the law, and the prohibition for heads of state to engage in acts of insurrection, ratified post–Civil War, are now under systematic attack.

DuVernay builds the film’s narrative using a wide and often surprising range of interview subjects. Contributors include expected names like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Georgia State Representative Stacey Abrams, and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson. But the Selma filmmaker also includes contemporary voices like political streamer and influencer Hasan Piker alongside MAGA republicans like Anna Paulina Luna.

“It was important for us to have a vast range of points of view. We wanted the audience to feel represented,” DuVernay told the London audience. “We reached out to more than 300 people who would be considered Republican or MAGA, and only four responded and said they would do it.”

DuVernay told the LFF crowd that she had no real intention of returning to the subject of the U.S. Constitution after the 13th, which covers the 13th Amendment, but became intrigued by the idea of interrogating the history behind the 14th Amendment during President Donald Trump’s second reelection campaign.

“It was the summer of 2024, when Donald Trump was campaigning for a second term, and I heard him talking about birthright citizenship,” she said. “One of the first things he said he would do—as a campaign promise—was challenge birthright citizenship. I thought, ‘Oh, wow. That’s the Fourteenth Amendment.’ That’s all I knew about it.”

Indeed, President Donald Trump signed an executive order challenging U.S. birthright citizenship on the first day of his second term in office, which was later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“But he also began systematically challenging every other part of the Amendment,” DuVernay said, explaining how the film developed.

“Part of our investigation, and our attempt to unpack all of this, was the horrible realization that no one person knew everything we needed to know. For 13th, there was a book called The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander that was like our bible for that film. For this film, there was no single book because there were so many pieces. A major part of the work was trying to piece everything together while the news was coming in in real time. It really evolved organically.”

The 14th runs just over 100 minutes, but covers an enormous scope of U.S. history, drawing a direct line from the Reconstruction era to President Trump’s second term.

“As we were researching, one thing that shocked me was how much we had forgotten,” Tammy Garnes said. “We started making a timeline. Every day we were making the movie, we documented something happening in the United States that shocked us or had a connection with the Fourteenth Amendment. And every single day, we could find something.”

Garnes added: “The truth is there. It’s just a matter of whether or not you want to see it, hear it, and internalize it.”

The 14th will debut globally on Netflix on December 4, following a theatrical release in select U.S. and U.K. theaters beginning on November 27. DuVernay told the LFF that her primary takeaway from the production is that “systems are not static.”

“We often feel that we’re governed by the laws, politicians, and policies that we live within and under. But systems are motivated by people, and we need to remember that systems can be changed by people,” DuVernay said.

“This film was not made to give you hope at the end. It was made to ensure we’re all standing together in a place of truth and sobriety. That we’re clear-eyed about where we are and honest about where we need to go. I hope that’s how you feel afterward. That was the goal.”

The LFF runs until Oct 18.

Spectrum’s Chief Commercial Officer Adam Ray and Chief Marketing Officer Sharon Peters will exit the company at the end of the year as part of a restructuring.

In an email obtained by TheWrap, Spectrum Chief Operating Officer Nick Jeffrey said the “simpler, flatter, operating structure” would allow it to “get closer to our customers, to move faster with fewer layers, and to focus on our two biggest priorities – returning to core Internet growth and improving customer service.”

The move comes as Spectrum’s parent company Charter Communications is looking to exceed $1 billion in cost savings after closing its $34.5 billion merger with rival Cox in August and faces an increasingly challenging competitive environment.

“I am increasingly convinced that our unmatched scale in broadband internet, our distinctive video assets and attractive mobile offer are market advantages,” Jeffrey said. “However, in recent years we have failed to marshal those advantages into a winning strategy and have underperformed the markets, and our own expectations.”

“Our new organizational structure means we can move faster, be clearer about who is accountable, and more quickly fix the things that get in the way of our customers and our people,” he added. “We have a huge opportunity in front of us. I am determined that we will deliver The Great Cable Comeback. Now we need to go after it and I’m excited to get started with all of you.”

Ray has spent over 20 years at Spectrum in increasingly senior roles across sales and field operations, including leading the company’s Florida region for nearly three years.

He has served as Chief Commercial Officer since 2022, overseeing marketing, residential sales, Spectrum Business and Community Solutions. His team has led the commercial strategy around SpectrumOne, the company’s $1,000 savings guarantee, and video packages built around Xumo Stream Box. They also recently introduced Spectrum to customers in former Cox markets.

Meanwhile, Peters joined Spectrum in 2016 and helped launch the brand after the Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks transactions.

Over the course of her nearly five year tenure, she has led brand strategy, advertising, customer insights, media planning and creative for residential, Spectrum Business and Community Solutions. Peters introduced Life Unlimited in 2024, oversaw the launch of Spectrum Mobile in 2018 and most recently oversaw the rebrand and launch of the company’s products to former Cox customers.

Simon Cassels will serve as Interim Chief Marketing Officer while a search for Peters’ replacement is underway. Ray’s role will not be filled.

Though Ray and Peters are exiting, Jeffrey emphasized that most roles won’t change under the restructuring. However, he noted that some reporting lines would.

In addition to Cassels, Jeffrey’s direct reports will include Customer Operations head Cliff Hagan, Field Operations head Tom Monaghan, Spectrum Consumer head Christian Ruiz, Spectrum Business head Keith Dardis and Business Planning and Business Intelligence head Paul Woelk.

Spectrum Wholesale, head Jeff Breaux will also serve as a direct report, though the business, which includes RapidScale and Segra, will remain operationally separate.

Meanwhile, Paul Marchand will serve as head of human resources until the new role is filled and will continue to report to Charter CEO Chris Winfrey. A search is also underway for a head of integration and Spectrum is finalizing the selection for a chief of staff.

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