Barry Jenkins Film Keynote at SXSW 2018 [Video]

"My first film Medicine For Melancholy premiered at this festival, world premiered at this festival. I'd like to say that SXSW is kind of like the birth of Barry Jenkins filmmaker in a sort of way. I remember being here in 2008 and sitting in a room just like this, listening to people talk on a stage behind a podium, just like this, and wondering what does it take to get from the back of that room to the front of this stage. That was ten years ago," said SXSW Film Keynote Speaker, Barry Jenkins on Sunday, March 11 at the 2018 SXSW Conference.

Academy Award winner Barry Jenkins was born and raised in Miami, FL. A Florida State University graduate, Jenkins’ feature film debut, Medicine For Melancholy world premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in 2008, and was hailed as one of the best films of 2009 by The New York Times.

Jenkins along with playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his second feature Moonlight, which won Best Picture at both the Oscars and the Golden Globes (Drama). Jenkins is the recipient of a DGA Best Director nomination and the winner of the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay. Most recently, Jenkins directed an episode of the Netflix Original Series Dear White People.

Upcoming projects include an adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel If Beale Street Could Talk, and an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead for television. Jenkins, currently resides in Los Angeles, is a curator at the Telluride Film Festival and a United States Artists Smith Fellow.

Watch the video above for the full 2018 SXSW Conference Film Keynote with Barry Jenkins. Get inspired by a multitude of diverse visionaries at SXSW – browse more 2018 Keynotes, Featured Sessions, Red Carpets, and Q&A’s on our YouTube Channel.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and SXSW News for the latest SXSW coverage, recaps, upcoming 2019 announcements, and more.

Filmmaker Barry Jenkins at 2018 Keynote – Photo by Travis P Ball/Getty Images