‘Nickel Boys’ Filmmakers Say The Ideas Behind Their Film Are Growing More Relevant By The Day – Contenders Film: The Nominees

deadline.com:

Nickel Boys, which had its world premiere over Labor Day weekend in Telluride, has since gone on to critical acclaim and many awards, all leading to the Oscars, where in addition to its Best Picture recognition it is also up for Adapted Screenplay for director/co-writer RaMell Ross and producer/co-writer Joslyn Barnes.

The pair joined Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees virtual livestream event to talk about the Orion Pictures and Amazon MGM Studios film, and their inspiration for adapting Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which was inspired by true events.

It tells the story of two Black teenagers who become wards of a juvenile reform school in Florida, where tragedy unfolds. The film is partly told using a singular POV style of cinematography in order to get the viewer even closer into the experience of these two young men thrust into circumstances beyond their control.

Ross related why the story has such relevance for today, especially with a new administration looking to curb DEI and other notable movements for minorities in today’s society. “Yeah, it’s kind of unprecedented what’s being rolled back, you know, such common things or such taken for granted things as Black History Month, or the idea that we need multiple voices in the room,” Ross says. “I think the thing that’s most fascinating is just the idea of erasure and the amount of stories that are already lost fundamentally to history, but then this sort of inclination to erase all of the sites and spaces that were set to preserve those stories.