Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect, 2nd Edition

12

My Josephine

By Barry Jenkins

Introduction

It took Barry Jenkins fifteen months to finish the screenplay and film of My Josephine. He wrote the first draft in mid-September, 2001, for his B.F.A. Screenwriting II class, and later—much later—directed the film for his Film-making III project.

It was a very raw film in that first draft. Everything I was feeling about 9/11 was vented right there on the surface of the script. The two characters were broad frames for my sympathy for Arab-Americans in post-9/11 America, and in clinging so much to that aspect of the script I went overboard and presented clichés as commentary on American Society. I was trying to do too much. The frame of the story was always one night in the life of these two characters. ...