“The reaction has been amazing,” says the 36-year-old Jenkins in Toronto. The film has had an extraordinary embrace on the autumn festival circuit its brilliance has left few stumbling out of the cinema unmoved. So no movie was perhaps ever more sorely required to prevent another #OscarsSoWhite than Moonlight: Barry Jenkins’s drama tracking a black gay man at three stages over his life. Despite renewed calls for people to judge the film on its own importance, the distressing accusations of rape against Parker – its star, as well as writer and director – have meant its red-carpet-to-awards glory is looking considerably less assured. An uncompromising take on racial politics, it was picked up by Fox Searchlight for a record $17.5m (£13.5m) on the presumption it would be the next 12 Years a Slave.īut lately, eggs have been removed from the Birth basket. Also, there was immediate hope on the horizon: The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker’s acclaimed Confederacy biopic, which had premiered to wild applause at Sundance. An industry-wide increase in films centred on ethnically diverse protagonists were greenlit.
