Telluride standout Nickel Boys kicks off its Oscar campaign with first trailer
The RaMell Ross film is adapted from Colson Whitehead's novel of the same name
Screenshot: Amazon MGM Studios/YouTube
One of the most exciting parts of the fall season is hearing Oscar buzz for a new film whenever it premieres at Venice or Telluride, and then finally getting a first glimpse when it releases a trailer for the rest of us a few days later. That always-exhilarating process just happened with RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys, which immediately entered the conversation upon its premiere at Telluride earlier this week.
Adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2019 novel of the same name, Nickel Boys “chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida,” per the film’s official logline. While Nickel Boys Academy is a fictional place, the story is inspired by the horrific abuse perpetrated against Black students at the very real Dozier School For Boys, an institution that operated during the 1950s and 1960s in Florida—the height of the Jim Crow era south.