For our first screening of 2023, we will celebrate what was recently and rightfully named one of the 100 greatest films of all-time by Sight and Sound, Barry Jenkins’ extraordinary 2016 film Moonlight.
Winner of, among many other things, the Academy Award for Best Picture (the first film with an LGBTQ protagonist to ever do so), Moonlight was adapted from Tarell Alvin McCraney’s unpublished semi-autobiographical play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue (Jenkins and McCraney shared the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay). Exploring the challenges Chiron (played by Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders and Alex Hibbert at various ages) faces regarding his identity and sexuality at three different stages of his life, their collaboration is a deeply compassionate cinematic take on Black queer masculinity, something that is all too rarely depicted on screen.
Brilliantly crafted and staggeringly acted (André Holland, Janelle Monáe, Naomie Harris and Mahershala Ali make up the supporting cast, the latter of whom won an Oscar for his performance), Moonlight is not even a decade old — but it’s already a classic. And it’s also a film that only improves on repeat viewings, which is one of the many reasons we’re excited to kick of our 2023 series with it.