Ava DuVernay & Eli Roth Added To PGA’s Produced By Conference

EXCLUSIVE: Ava DuVernay and Eli Roth are the latest additions to PGA’s Produced By Conference, set for May 30-31 on the Paramount lot in Hollywood. The Selma producer-director will sit for A Conversation With Tyler Perry, and the horror veteran is set to moderate a panel on Blumhouse Productions.

DuVernay is collaborating with Oprah Winfrey on Queen Sugar, an OWN series about a woman who inherits land in Louisiana, prompting her to uproot her family and move to the South. She’s also working on For Justice, a TV movie about a female FBI agent. Perry, who credits Winfrey with inspiring him to become a writer, is a cottage industry all to himself — writing, directing and producing numerous films, TV series and plays including the popular Madea franchise and OWN’s signature series The Haves and Have Nots. His chat with DuVernay is set for 9:30 AM on May 31.

Roth has directed and produced a slew of horror features including the Hostel films and executive produces Netflix’s Hemlock Grove. His panel on Blumhouse — the company behind such horror franchises as Paranormal Activity, Insidious and Sinister — will feature founder Jason Blum along with Jeanette Volturno-Brill, Jessica Rhoades and Phillip Dawe, the company’s respective heads of production, TV and postproduction. The panel starts at 3:45 PM on May 30.

Also, Deadline’s Pete Hammond will moderate a panel discussion about Fox’s wildly successful Empire with executive producers Lee Daniels, Danny Strong, Brian Grazer, Francie Calfo and Ilene Chaiken. That panel is set for 3:45 PM on May 31.

Other panels include a conversation with Reese Witherspoon and her producing partner Bruna Papandrea, moderated by Ride Along and Think Like A Man producer Will Packer (May 30 at 11:15 AM); a conversation with Eva Longoria, moderated by Devious Maids and Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry (May 31 at 2 PM), and A Conversation With  Kevin Smith, moderated by KPCC’s John Horn (May 31 at 11:15 AM).

This year’s Produced By Conference will feature 110 speakers and more than 40 sessions of panel discussions, workshops, and mentor roundtables.