More About Class Than Race

After finally seeing the much talked about Medicine for Melancholy, I felt like it was well worth the wait. I loved the film and really could identify with its characters, even more so than I have been able to do in a long time in films made in either Hollywood, Indiewood, OR DIY-land.


Some of our crew attempted to see the film at NYC's IFC Theatre and follow with a much needed production meeting afterwards to detail the plans of action for our triple release for Carter, Uptown and Cookies & Cream. The meeting took place afterwards, but there was in fact no screening - the film was sold out with the line stetched down 6th Ave on the block between West 3rd and West 4th. Although we were a little disappointed with not being able to see the film as it was about to complete its New York run the next day, we were still sort of proud that more history was made for DIY films and films made by people of color.


Here is a rather muted, January '09 NY Times Review in which director Barry Jenkins discusses the film and his new ideas on race and class in America:


“MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY,” an independent feature by the first-time writer-director Barry Jenkins, opens the morning after a one-night stand. Micah and Jo, who don’t yet know each other’s names, are young and black, and for want of a more descriptive term you might call them hipsters. In San Francisco, where the African-American population is less than 7 percent and where “black indie kids” (to use Mr. Jenkins’s term) are scarce, that gives their hookup added significance — at least for Micah. As he puts it to Jo, “You ever realize just how few of us there really are?”


For Mr. Jenkins, who is African-American, the question resounds within the context not just of Bay Area indie culture but also of American indie filmmaking, which is not exactly a bastion of diversity.

Like so many movies about 20-something urbanites, “Medicine for Melancholy,” which had its premiere at South by Southwest last year and opens in New York on Friday, concerns the search for self-definition. But it stands apart for its forthright attention to the push-pull of inclusion and exclusion that comes with being a minority member of a subculture."


Read full article HERE:


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/movies/25denn.html?_r=2&ref=movies