"My Josephine" is an American short film from 2003, so this one will have its 15th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Barry Jenkins and of course you all know him now thanks to "Moonlight". This one here is one of his earlier (possibly his earliest) works as he was just in his early 20s when it came out. Conflict between different cultures is a subject in here as the focus is on language, nationality and belonging. This is the story of two people who work at a launderette and who are frequently busy with cleaning American flags after a terrible historical event. There is a bit of a (potential) love story between the two, but it is all very vague. I guess Jenkin' mostly wanted to show his craft through metaphors and symbolisms here. But I would not say it really worked out in terms of the plot. Acting's a bit stale too. The direction is pretty good at times and the talent is easily visible for a man his age back then. No surprise he really delivered now with his first full feature film after lots of experience with short films. This one here is only 8 minutes long (including 1 minute of credits) and most of the language is Arabic, so you may need subtitles to see this one. I think for a young aspiring filmmaker, it's an okay work, but by overall standards not a success and I have to give it a thumbs-down. I think Jenkins can live with that in the face of his most recent achievement.
Review of My Josephine
