Barry Jenkins, a nominee for the Best Director Oscar as well as the DGA Award for Moonlight, has joined the roster of Smuggler for global commercial representation.
Moonlight is a coming of age story that centers on Chiron whom we follow through three distinct chapters in his life—as a boy (portrayed by Alex Hibbert), a teen (Ashton Sanders) and then a young man (Trevante Rhodes). Growing up in the perilous Liberty Square neighborhood of Miami, the vulnerable, quiet Chiron copes as best he can with a harsh reality which includes a drug-addicted mother (Naomie Harris) and kids who mercilessly bully him. However, Chiron finds camaraderie and intimacy in a childhood friend, Kevin, played at different ages by Jaden Piner as a lad, Jharrel Jerome as a teen and Andre Holland as a young adult.
Moonlight has earned a total of eight Oscar nominations (including for Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Jenkins), won the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture (Drama), garnered 10 Broadcast Critics Choice Award nominations, six Golden Globe nods and four BAFTA nominations. Moonlight additionally won Best Picture and Director at the Gotham Awards and Best International Film by the British Independent Film Awards. The New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review awarded Jenkins Best Director distinction while the Los Angeles Film Critics named him Best Director and the film Best Picture. Jenkins also garnered a Writers Guild Award nomination for Moonlight.
“I can’t express how delighted we are to have Barry come on board. Not only has he written and directed one of the most powerfully courageous and thought provoking films of our time but his awareness and nuance in doing so shows a talent with a foundation for great things to come,” said Smuggler co-founder Brian Carmody.
Jenkins’ feature film debut, Medicine For Melancholy, was hailed as one of the best films of 2009 by The New York Times and received several Independent Spirit and Gotham Award nominations.
“Barry is a great fit and tremendous addition to Smuggler,” said Smuggler co-founder Patrick Milling Smith. “He has written and directed one of the most important films of our time. His command of craft and delicate, nuanced storytelling are first class. Barry has a strong, original voice with the ambition, skill, taste, and character to be a very important filmmaker for our industry”
Upcoming projects include an adaptation of National Book Award winner Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad for television, which he will pen and direct. He’s also writing a script for a coming of age drama based on the life of the first American female Olympic boxing champ Clarissa “T-Rex” Shields.
Jenkins was born and raised in Miami, and is a Florida State University graduate who currently resides in Los Angeles, and serves as a curator at the Telluride Film Festival and a United States Artists Smith Fellow.
