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About Barnacle Films

Barnacle Films is a production company started by director Erik L. Barnes.  Erik began his career at Rhode Island School of Design as an undergrad in the film department.  His senior project was a short film called Lit and was screened at a several film festivals including the New Orleans Film Festival. 

After school, Erik embarked on a career as a successful commercial editor, editing numerous commercials for many global brands including Apple, Coca-cola, Honda and many others. It was at this time he launched Barnacle Films and began directing a number of documentaries for various arts institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, The Getty Museum, and The New York Times T Magazine.  These films enjoyed online success in addition to screening internationally at film festivals including the Oaxaca International Film Festival and the Newport Beach Film Festival. 

It was while researching a documentary on street sign spinners, Erik found the inspiration for his short film Spinners.  With the help of screenwriter Cami Delavigne (Blue Valentine), a script was written about two hapless young sign spinners and an unfortunate single mother living out of her car.

While casting for the film, Erik took a longshot and sent the script to Timothee Chalamet whose performance he had seen on the Showtime series Homeland produced by Fox 21.  Based on the strength of the script alone, Timothee agreed to do the film.  Rounding out the cast with seasoned Indy film actress Kristin Slaysman (Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, Masters of Sex) and comedian Ify Nwadiwe (Key and Peele), Spinners was filmed in the desert community of Yucca Valley and went on to screen in several film festivals (including a return to the New Orleans Film Festival, Memphis Indie, the Maryland Film Festival, and many others).

Currently Barnacle Films is in development for the feature film Down the Ocean and actively looking for funding and investors. (see our Development page for more details)