Barry Jenkins

Director

November 19, 1979 (46 years)

Miami, Florida, USA

Biography

Barry Jenkins (born November 19, 1979) is an American filmmaker. After making his filmmaking debut with the short film My Josephine (2003), he directed his first feature film, Medicine for Melancholy (2008), for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. He is also a creative collaborator and a member of The Chopstars collective. Following an eight-year hiatus from feature filmmaking, Jenkins directed and co-wrote the LGBTQ-themed independent drama Moonligh…

Filmography

7.3

Mufasa: The Lion King

Mufasa, a cub lost and alone, meets a sympathetic lion named Taka, the heir to a royal bloodline. The chance meeting sets in motion an expansive journey of a group of misfits searching for their destiny.

7.4

Moonlight

The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.

5.9

Dear White People

Students of color navigate the daily slights and slippery politics of life at an Ivy League college that's not nearly as "post-racial" as it thinks.

7.2

The Underground Railroad

Follow young Cora’s journey as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.

6.9

If Beale Street Could Talk

After her fiance is falsely imprisoned, a pregnant African-American woman sets out to clear his name and prove his innocence.

2.8

The Gaze

In all my years of doing press, I've been repeatedly asked about the White gaze. Rarely have I been set upon about the black gaze; or the gaze distilled. This is an answer to a question rarely asked.

9.0

Remigration

Upon returning to their countryside cabin one day, Kaya, his wife Helen, and their daughter Naomi are confronted by two suited men: representatives of the San Francisco Remigration Program. The men explain that San Francisco is now occupied entirely by the wealthy class. But stoplights still burn out and trains occasionally jump their rails. Blue-collar labor isn't obsolete, but it's scarce. The city has created a program to "remigrate" long-gone working class families from their inland homes back to the city that once pushed them out. Kaya, Helen, and Naomi return to San Francisco and join a handful of other potential remigrants for a tour of what can be expected in their new lives. But can they learn to trust their old home once again?

6.1

Medicine for Melancholy

Waking from a one-night stand that neither remembers, Micah and Joanne find themselves wandering the streets of San Francisco, sharing coffee and conversation and searching for a deeper connection.

6.6

My Josephine

Aadid tells us his life in seven minutes. He's an Arabic-speaking young man working the night shift at a laundromat and dry cleaners somewhere in the United States. In the aftermath of 9/11, they wash U.S. flags for free. He says they get six or seven per day. He tells us about Napoleon's two wives: Marie Louise for an heir, Josephine for love. Aadid likes Adela, his co-worker. She's his Josephine. We watch Aadid and Adela hand wash the flags and put them in dryers. They fold them. They dance. They stand side by side outside the door of the laundromat looking at the dawn. Will this companionship become something more?

6.1

Tall Enough

Love knows no borders in this stylish snapshot of interracial coupledom. Two Brooklyn photographers (she, African-American; he, Chinese-American) meet and their romance blossoms and endures back home, amidst a poetical widescreen mix of images both seductive and sedate.

4.0

Chlorophyl

The story of a young girl and her fleeting relationship with a scoundrel.

5.5

Another Young Couple

Another Young Couple — borne out of a camera test for If Beale Street Could Talk, James and I asked my friends Essence and Jihaari, newly transplanted to LA to allow us into their home for an afternoon tea about their lives and loves, apart and together. We were migrating to the Alexa 65 for Beale Street and wanted to see for ourselves how that large-format sensor would affect intimate portraiture within lived spaces… in particular the faces and spaces of Black folk.

N/A

One Shot

Its single hand-held shot lends both immediacy of viewpoint and a floating unreality to a young woman's visit to a Seattle convenience store, seemingly fraught with menacing purpose.

N/A

Untitled Alvin Ailey Project

The life story of acclaimed American choreographer Alvin Ailey.

8.0

King's Gym

Oakland, California's "boxing gym of champions" is showcased here, its historic walls lined with posters for matches boasting past regulars from George Foreman and Joe Frazier to Gina Guidi. Though the crowded environ may be one of sweaty, noisy machismo, director Barry Jenkins' surprisingly lyrical miniature uses a delicate piano score and slow motion images to enter a contender's solitary headspace.

5.9

Little Brown Boy

A little brown boy gets caught up in a violent shooting and must come to terms with the incident and the part he has played.

6.2

A Young Couple

A couple discuss their relationship.

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