MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY 
MOONLIGHT 
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK 
WASHINGTON -- The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture kicks off its inaugural film festival on Wednesday, with Steve McQueen's "Widows" as the opening selection and Barry Jenkins' "If Beale Street Could Talk" as the closing pic on Saturday.The Smithsonian African American Film Festival will screen about 80 movies over the span of four days, including 15 titles that will premiere in competition at the museum's Oprah Winfrey Theater."Widows," to be released on Nov. 16, is the...
PASTEL
Barry
Jenkins
Film Director
It took just one movie to turn Jenkins into a hot Hollywood director. The massive, groundbreaking success of 2016’s “Moonlight,” the Oscar winner about a young African-American man growing up gay, positioned him as a top-tier talent in the industry, with his new cachet leading to a string of high-profile projects. First up is this fall’s “Moonlight” follow-up, “If Beale Street Could Talk,” an adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel about a 1970s romance and the fallout of a false arrest in Harlem. On the small screen, he has signed with Amazon to write and direct a one-hour series based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel “The Underground Railroad.” At 2018’s TIFF, he equated his brand of quietly percolating fare to the big-budget releases, saying they have “blockbuster emotions.”
