Barry

It’s the Fall of 1981 and a young Barack Obama (Terrell)—known to his friends as “Barry”— arrives as a transfer student at Columbia University. Thrust into Mayor Koch’s racially fraught and crime-ridden New York City, Barry finds himself pulled between various social stratospheres. As he struggles to maintain a series of increasingly strained relationships—with his Kansas-born mother (Judd), his estranged Kenyan father, and his classmates (Taylor-Joy, Coltrane, Mitchell)—glaring issues of inequality force him to confront questions surrounding his own identity. His experiences over that pivotal school year begin to shape his views on race, government, and what it means to be an American.

2017 Film Independent Spirit Awards
Nominated, Best First Screenplay