If you haven’t heard about the film Moonlight, staring Mahershala Ali (House of Cards, Luke Cage), you need to. The British film has been receiving huge praise with an all black cast, directed by Barry Jenkins.
While at the British Independent Film Awards, Jenkins gave his thoughts on a recent British Film Institute report stating “over half of British films feature no black actors in named roles. Just 13 percent of films released in the last decade, meanwhile, featured a black actor in a lead role.”
“It has to be behind the camera. There has to be black writers, black directors who are empowered, black producers who are empowered,” Jenkins said.
His sentiments were backed by “Ben Wheatley, the director behind Free Fire, which stars Oscar winner Brie Larson, and High-Rise starring Tom Hiddleston,” Wheatley, while arguing that films set in the past not having diversity makes sense (I agree to an extent), does agree that “there’s no excuse at all not to be reflective of the period now when you make movies that are modern.”
Newsweek – http://www.newsweek.com/british-independent-film-awards-barry-jenkins-ben-wheatley-diversity-528172
