SXSW Film Keynote: Barry Jenkins

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Film Keynote: Barry Jenkins
SXSW – Austin Convention Center, March 11, 2018
Article by Stacey Lovett and Photography by Jim Chapin

Being open to your own vulnerability sets the foundation for your art to reach its greatest potential and director/producer/screenwriter Barry Jenkins spoke to his panel audience about breaking through his own walls in the face of adversity in his career.

Best known for his films Moonlight & Medicine for Melancholy, Jenkins admitted that his beginning in film wasn’t as cleanly composed as he’d hoped as a black man from the Miami projects born of a drug-addicted mother. He wasn’t immediately seen as fodder for film school and instead of throwing in the towel he took initiative to open his field of expertise as much as possible to show everybody his potential and related his tips for success to a receptive audience.

Once finally accepted into Florida State film school, his student film, My Josephine, ultimately became his transition into early notoriety opening a window speaking to everything external affecting the world post 9-11. Through his own upbringing and his keen observations of the world he created the transmutation of the ‘Arab is the new black’ phenomenon leading to his first piece of advice – make it personal and be a sponge to the world around you.

He broke through his own proverbial walls after he graduated showing his 7 minute short to Harpo Films and securing a subsequent position there at the studio. Jenkins went on to admit though to never expect an opportunity to just be handed to you, then proved it required determination and acceptance of what all life deals you. Briefly traveling the US by train – as he was admittedly not privileged like the white kids who backpack Europe) he fell in love, then pain, in San Francisco and ended up using that in his next journey to find his directors voice. After reading up on indie filmmaking and creation and creating countless business plans his next tip of being a go-getter came into play as he pounded the pavement, hounding everyone he knew through his grassroots self-promotion with Medicine for Melancholy. Following the lack of reception at the Toronto Film Festival, deficiency of new material, and a falling out with a long time friend he went into hiding and it wasn’t until embracing vulnerability and reconciling with her four years later did they team up to create Moonlight.

Jenkins proclaimed that he had been denying himself the dream through placing limitations on himself and it wasn’t until he gained acceptance in the community where they filmed Moonlight and seeing firsthand that they saw in him the dream he couldn’t understand that he finally came full circle and accepted it himself.

Barry Jenkins advised the audience to find common ground in their work, to find what moves and inspires them and look for deeper connections then that collaboration will coalesce around them; Talent isn’t enough – keep making that work and have faith not that the industry will come to you but that you’ll find a place to make your passion happen and take care of your friends when running through those brick walls.

Recognizing the bad with the good and creating your own potential in life by embracing and opening up to it will open more doors when breaking down the walls that you think hold you back, and Barry Jenkins is living proof of this.

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