Danny Jarabek
Based on Colson Whitehead‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Nickel Boys offers a poignant and unflinching look at the harrowing experiences of two boys at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. Director RaMell Ross, renowned for his Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018), brings his poetic sensibility and deep attunement with Black history to this adaptation, crafting a work that is both intensely personal and formally experimental.
In Nickel Boys, Ross explores themes of systemic racism, resilience, and the enduring scars of injustice, capturing the quiet dignity and pain of his characters by putting the audience directly in the perspective of his lead characters, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson). Through their own eyes in what Ross calls a “sentient perspective” we see the boys develop a bond amidst the discrimination and abuse faced at the Nickel Academy, a representation of the Dozier School for Boys in the 1960s.
In our conversation, Ross discusses his collaboration with cinematographer Jomo Fray in storyboarding the film, as well as how the locations and production design build a deep-rooted sense of time and place. He details his decision to adapt the powerful novel, and how his background as a documentarian shaped his approach to narrative filmmaking.
Listen to our full conversation with RaMell Ross, the writer and director of Nickel Boys below.
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