If Beale Street Could Talk trailer: Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight follow-up is a story about love enduring in the face of racial injustice

The official trailer for If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to his Oscar winning Moonlight, was released over the weekend. Based on James Baldwin’s celebrated 1974 novel, the film’s trailer tells the tale of two young lovers in Harlem, Tish (newcomer Kiki Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James), whose life together, just as it’s starting, is shattered by a racist police officer and a false accusation of rape. The film, bathed in the warm cinematography of James Laxton and the melancholy Miles Davis Kind of Blue-inspired horns of composer Nicholas Britell (both of whom worked on Moonlight, too), radiates with the love between the two and the sorrow of their unjust but not uncommon circumstance. [caption id=“attachment_5251671” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Kiki Layne and Stephan James in If Beale Street Could Talk. Image via Twitter[/caption] It’s the first big-screen adaptation of any novel by Baldwin and just the third film by 38-year-old filmmaker who was catapulted to larger renown by the astonishing Moonlight, a low-budget independent film that took center stage at 2017 Academy Awards. At the recently concluded TIFF 2018, If Beale Street Could Talk was first runner up to Peter Farrelly's _Green Book_ for the festival’s top prize —  People’s Choice Award. If Beale Street Could Talk will be released by Annapurna Pictures on 30 November. Watch the trailer here:

(With inputs from The Associated Press)