Writer-director Barry Jenkins' feature-film follow-up to his Oscar-winning "Moonlight" will be an adaptation of James Baldwin's "If Beale Street Could Talk."
Annapurna Pictures announced Monday that Jenkins will start shooting the film in October.
Jenkins said adapting Baldwin's 1974 novel about love and injustice in 1970s Harlem is "a dream I've long held dear." He penned the screenplay in the same 2013 summer during which he wrote "Moonlight" from Tarell Alvin McCraney's play.
The Baldwin estate has given its blessing to the film, which follows Raoul Peck's Oscar-nominated Baldwin documentary "I Am Not Your Negro." ''If Beale Street Could Talk" will return much of the production team behind "Moonlight," including producer Adele Romanski and Plan B.
Jenkins is also developing a series for Amazon based on Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad."
Suchir Balaji poses for a photo in Hawaii in 2018. Balaji was a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who died in November 2024. (Balaji Ramamurthy via AP)
Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26.
Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August. He was well-regarded by colleagues at the San Francisco company, where a co-founder this week called him one of OpenAI's strongest contributors who was essential to developing some of its products.
"We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news and our hearts go out to Suchir's loved ones during this difficult time," said a statement from OpenAI.
Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on Nov. 26 in what police said "appeared to be a suicide. No evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation." The city's chief medical examiner's office confirmed the manner of death to be suicide.
His parents Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy said they are still seeking answers, describing their son as a "happy, smart and brave young man" who loved to hike and recently returned from a trip with friends.
Balaji grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and first arrived at the fledgling AI research lab for a 2018 summer internship while studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned a few years later to work at OpenAI, where one of his first projects, called WebGPT, helped pave the way for ChatGPT.
"Suchir's contributions to this project were essential, and it wouldn't have succeeded without him," said OpenAI co-founder John Schulman in a social media post memorializing Balaji. Schulman, who recruited Balaji to his team, said what... Read More
