Barry Jenkins

Barry Jenkins
Jenkins in 2009
Born	(1979-11-19) November 19, 1979 Miami, Florida, U.S.
Residence	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Florida State University
Occupation	Film director, screenwriter
Years active	2003–present
Notable work	Medicine for Melancholy Moonlight

Barry Jenkins (born November 19, 1979) is an American film director and writer based in Los Angeles, known for his films Medicine for Melancholy (2008) and Moonlight (2016), the latter of which received dozens of accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, the latter of which Jenkins shared with co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney.^[1]

Early life

Jenkins was born in Liberty City, Miami, the youngest of four siblings. His father died when he was 12, and had earlier separated from his mother, believing that Jenkins was not his biological son. During his childhood, Jenkins was raised by another woman in an overcrowded apartment. He attended Miami Northwestern Senior High School, where he played on the school football team. Jenkins later studied film at Florida State University in Tallahassee.^[2]

Career

2000s–2010s: Early work

Jenkins's breakout film was Medicine for Melancholy, a low-budget independent feature released in 2008, starring Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins.^[3] The film was well received by critics.^[2]

After the success of his previous film, Jenkins wrote an epic for Focus Features about "Stevie Wonder and time travel" and an adaptation of the James Baldwin novel If Beale Street Could Talk, neither of which entered production.^[2][4] He later worked as a carpenter and co-founded an advertising company called Strike Anywhere. In 2011, he wrote and directed Remigration, a sci-fi short film about gentrification. Jenkins became a writer for HBO's The Leftovers, about which he commented, "I didn't get to do much."^[2]

2016: Moonlight

Jenkins directed and co-wrote, with Tarell Alvin McCraney, the 2016 drama Moonlight, his first feature film in eight years.^[2] The film was shot in Miami and premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in September 2016 to vast critical acclaim and awards buzz.^[5][6] A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote: "Moonlight dwells on the dignity, beauty and terrible vulnerability of black bodies, on the existential and physical matter of black lives."^[7] Variety wrote: "Barry Jenkins' vital portrait of a South Florida youth revisits the character at three stages in his life, offering rich insights into the contemporary African-American experience."^[8] David Sims of The Atlantic wrote: "Like all great films, Moonlight is both specific and sweeping. It’s a story about identity—an intelligent, challenging work."^[9]

The film won dozens of accolades, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture – Drama^[10] and the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards.^[11] Jenkins and McCraney also won Best Adapted Screenplay and overall, the film received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Director.^[12]

2017–present: Further projects

In 2017, Jenkins directed the fifth episode of the Netflix original series Dear White People.^[13]

His upcoming projects include a series based on Colson Whitehead's novel The Underground Railroad, a screenplay based on the life of Claressa Shields,^[14] and a film adaptation of James Baldwin's novel If Beale Street Could Talk.^[15] The Baldwin project--a script he began writing in Berlin in 2013, the same year he wrote Moonlight^[16]--is planned to begin production in October 2017 with Annapurna Pictures, Pastel and Plan B.^[17]

Filmography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Barry Jenkins.

• Barry Jenkins on IMDb
• Barry Jenkins on Twitter