‘Nickel Boys’ Opens New York Film Festival, Marking RaMell Ross’s Fictional Film Debut: ‘Hopefully This Film Can Be a Proxy For the Real Dozier Boys’
variety.comAnna Tingley “Nickel Boys,” RaMell Ross‘s adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2019 novel, opened New York Film Festival’s 62nd edition on Friday night.
The historical drama, which received rave reviews out of Telluride in September, marks the Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker’s narrative debut.
On a muggy, overcast evening in the Upper West Side, Ross and the film’s stars — including Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Daveed Diggs — walked the carpet at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall before introducing the film to the nearly-packed theater. “You can feel the energy, it’s like Michael Jordan is in the arena,” Ross told Variety ahead of the screening. “It feels like something crazy is gonna happen in there.” “Emotional” might be a more apt descriptor of the screening experience.
The two-and-a-half-hour film follows two Black teenagers who become wards of a barbaric juvenile reformatory in Jim Crow-era Florida.
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