A black-and-white film about James Baldwin, shot on a hand-cranked Bolex 16mm camera and running just 68 minutes, is reaching U.S. audiences nearly two years after its festival debut. The film, titled Jimmy, is the directorial debut of photographer Yashaddai Owens and stars Benny O. Arthur as Baldwin (Variety).

Jimmy had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival — a boutique festival in the Colorado mountains that has launched prestige titles into the autumn awards corridor. The U.S. theatrical release followed almost two years later (Variety). The film is also set to open the 35th Heartland Film Festival on 8 October 2026 in downtown Indianapolis, where it will have its festival world premiere (WRTV/Facebook).

Owens, best known as a stills photographer, shot the film in monochrome on a Bolex — a Swiss wind-up 16mm camera beloved by experimental film-makers for its portability and mechanical simplicity. The result is a portrait that travels with Baldwin through Istanbul and Paris, two cities where the novelist and civil rights essayist lived and worked outside the United States. Paco Andreo composed the jazz score (Variety).

A Guardian review published in March 2025 described Jimmy as a lyrical, impressionistic work that prioritises images over the spoken word, focusing on Baldwin in 1940s Paris (The Guardian).

Jimmy is not the only Baldwin project in the pipeline. Billy Porter, the actor and singer known for Pose, has been attached to play Baldwin in a separate biopic since at least April 2023, when The Guardian first reported the project (The Guardian). That film was still described as in the works a year later, in an April 2024 Guardian article about Baldwin's legacy in Hollywood (The Guardian). No release date has been announced for Porter's film.

What makes Jimmy stand out is its scale and method. At 68 minutes, it is closer in length to a gallery piece than a conventional feature. The Bolex and the monochrome stock place it in a lineage of handcrafted, materially foregrounded cinema — the kind of film where the grain of the image is part of the argument. Whether that approach finds a wide audience or stays a festival object is a question the U.S. release, and the Heartland opening night slot, will begin to answer.