Barry Jenkins
Barry Jenkins (born November 19, 1979) is an American filmmaker. After making his filmmaking debut with the short film My Josephine (2003), he directed his first feature film, Medicine for Melancholy (2008), for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. He is also a member of the Chopstars collective as a creative collaborator.
Defining films
In their own words
I saw how she used place and space and people and didn't create narratives. She just allowed these elements to exist with one another and then found the narrative in the way that they existed with one another.
When I started making films my influences were Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Claire Denis, Wong Kar-wai, Edward Yang. When Yi Yi came out it blew my mind wide open.
Edward Yang just let the story unfold and let the frames just carry the audience along.
The thing that I'm always struck by, that I've tried to internalize for my own work, is how you treat cinema as a character study, a character portrait.