Filmmaker Barry Jenkins, best known for directing Academy Award winning film Moonlight, has been roped in to direct James Baldwins popular novel If Beale Street Could Talk.

If Beale Street Could Talk tells the story of Tish, a newly engaged Harlem woman who races against the clock to prove her lover's innocence while carrying their first born child.

It is a celebration of love told through the story of a young couple, their families and their lives, trying to bring about justice through love, for love and the promise of the American dream.

Jenkins, who has been wanting to make the film for many years, wrote the screenplay during the same time in 2013 when he penned Moonlight. Since then, Jenkins has been working with the Baldwin Estate to get this adaptation off the ground.