Ben & Jerry’s is going in a unique direction for its next celebrity ice cream flavor. The company is teaming up with director Ava DuVernay for the flavor “Lights! Caramel! Action! directed by Ava DuVernay.” The filmmaker is best known for directing the Martin Luther King Jr. biopic Selma and creating the hit OWN series Queen Sugar.
The new flavor, announced on Dec. 6, features vanilla ice cream with salted caramel swirls, graham cracker swirls, and gobs of chocolate chip cookie dough. It will be available in both ice cream and almond milk-based Non-Dairy varieties. The flavor will begin arriving in stores across the country in January. It will be a permanent addition to the Ben & Jerry’s line-up and will also be featured at franchised Scoop Shops.
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DuVernay was personally involved in creating the flavor, Ben & Jerry’s said. Proceeds from the flavor will go to her non-profit ARRAY Alliance. The group’s mission is to raise awareness of the work of artists of color and women directors, create inclusive film sets, and provide grants, mentorship, and education to people from underrepresented communities who want to be in the film business. DuVernay founded the group in 2011.
“Ice cream is a simple joy of life. A comfort food that I’ve turned to on many days – making sunny ones brighter and dark ones sweeter,” DuVernay said in a statement. “Partnering with Ben & Jerry’s, a company that I’ve long admired for their commitment to social justice, has been a thrill ride. I had the opportunity to work with food scientists to create a flavor with all the ingredients that I personally love for a cause close to my heart. Beyond being downright delicious, proceeds from Lights! Caramel! Action! will help ARRAY Alliance further its non-profit mission of inclusion and belonging in the film and TV industries. A worthy and delicious endeavor.”
DuVernay, 50, made history as the first African-American woman to direct a movie nominated for the Best Picture Oscar with Selma. The 2014 film also won Best Original Song for John Legend and Common’s song “Glory.” DuVernay also directed the Oscar-nominated documentary 13th and Disney’s A Wrinkle In Time. She has also been busy on television, creating OWN’s Queen Sugar and the Netflix limited series When They See Us and Colin in Black & White. She also won two Emmys for 13th, which is available on Netflix.
In 2020, Netflix announced that DuVernay would write, direct and produce Caste, a feature film adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. DuVernay’s film will track multiple stories to explore the “unspoken system that has shaped America and chronicles how our lives today are defined by a hierarchy of human divisions dating back generations.” Caste was recently renamed Origin and is being filmed in Georgia.
