If you haven’t already seen Moonlight, winner of this year’s Best Picture Oscar, do yourself a favour and check it out immediately.
Its director-writer Barry Jenkins (who was awarded the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Moonlight with Tarell Alvin McCraney) has been heaped with praise and awards for his emotional, powerful feature debut.
Critics and audiences alike can’t wait to see what he does next and now Jenkins has chosen his next film.
He’ll be directing an adaptation of If Beale Street Could Talk, based on the novel by James Baldwin. Published in 1974, the novel is set in '70s Harlem and follows young engaged couple Fonny and Tish, the former of whom is falsely accused of rape.
According to Variety, “the story follows Tish, a newly engaged Harlem woman who races against the clock to prove her lover’s innocence while carrying their first born child.
“It is a celebration of love told through the story of a young couple, their families and their lives, trying to bring about justice through love, for love and the promise of the American dream.”
It is a passion project for Jenkins, who wanted to make the film for years and wrote the screenplay in the same summer of 2013 in which he wrote Moonlight.
Production on the film is expected to start in October. The movie will mark Jenkins’ first production with Annapurna Pictures and see him reunite with Moonlight’s producing team with PASTEL and Plan B.
Also in the pipeline, Jenkins will be writing and directing an hour-long drama series for Amazon about the Underground Railroad based on Colson Whitehead’s best-seller The Underground Railroad.
