Ava DuVernay’s dreams came true on Saturday when pal Oprah Winfrey set her up on a date with Irish rock star Bono.
Oprah has posted a video of the get together, and admitted her A Wrinkle in Time director is one of the U2 star’s number one fans.
“My dear friend @ava LOOOVES Bono,” Winfrey wrote as a caption. “So as a Birthday, Christmas, Easter, Forever gift I surprised her… with tickets to concert and meet and greet afterwards in Nashville! Sweet moment (sic).”
The filmmaker also shared a photograph from her Bono meeting, revealing she has “loved Bono and U2” since she was “a girl”.
“I’ve been guarded and guided by their work in many moments of my life,” she writes. “I first learned about human rights and activism, not through Martin Luther King as he was blandly taught in school, but through the passion of Bono’s voice singing of the civil rights icon in the song PRIDE,” she writes.
“I named my first narrative film, I WILL FOLLOW, after their song that meant so much to me and my Aunt Denise. She was the one who first introduced me to their music. I played their song BAD on the day I buried her and it helped me lift my head as I drove to the funeral, like a balm for my wounded heart.”
She added: “My favorite all-time song of U2 is DROWNING MAN. It’s not a hit song. It’s a heart song. And it lives in mine. In the song, Bono sings the words: take my hand. A moment before this picture was snapped, he reached over and took mine in his. I was breathless and speechless. He and (guitarist) Edge were everything a fan wishes their hero will be upon meeting them. Every single thing.”
DuVernay also thanked Oprah for making the magical meeting happen, adding she knew the get together with her hero would make her heart “shine and shimmer and sing”.