IN MY HEART

hen you’ve been through the mill of Academy Awards press lobbying, a once-open and outspoken artist can become cagey and distant. Journalists suddenly become attack dogs with an ulterior motive, and one tiny slip-up can cause the entire house of cards to tumble. Not so with Barry Jenkins, winner of the 2017 Best Picture Oscar for his ambient Florida-set triptych, Moonlight, which is based on a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney. When it comes to picking apart the finer points of art – his art, and art made by others – he’s ready to dive in deep. We first encountered Jenkins at the 2009 London Film Festival, where his delightful debut feature, Medicine for Melancholy, played, and he was also involved in a panel discussion which explored the question What is Indie Cinema? His latest work is an adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’, about a young black woman who discovers she’s pregnant soon after her boyfriend is framed for rape by a racist cop he dared to stand up to. All three of his films offer a bracing counter-narrative to the stories of black Americans we so often see depicted on screen, particularly those by white directors. We spoke about how closely his film work dovetails with the novels and essay work of James