Nickel Boys

Synopsis

The long-awaited adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel The Nickel Boys, is gracing our festival screens shortly after its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. This historical drama is directed by RaMell Ross (Hale County This Morning, This Evening, 2018) and follows two African American boys in an abusive 1960s reform school in Florida called the Nickel Academy. Whitehead’s novel drew Inspiration from a real institution and Jomo Fray’s camerawork keeps to a first-person perspective to convey the oppressive conditions and the emotional impact on the characters through a particular kind of embodied, visual storytelling.