PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Though many would point to raw talent and drive as the keys to his success, artist and filmmaker RaMell Ross is quick to credit luck and timing for his growing list of achievements, including a 2025 Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay.
The Brown University associate professor of visual art’s latest film, “Nickel Boys” — which he co-wrote and directed — has upended his peaceful routine of teaching and filmmaking with a whirlwind of press attention and critical acclaim. That whirlwind will continue through Sunday, March 2, when Ross will attend the Academy Awards in Los Angeles and learn whether his film lands an Oscar for best adapted screenplay or best picture.
Based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Nickel Boys,” the film tells the harrowing story of two Black pupils who endured unspeakable abuse at a reformatory school in the Florida panhandle in the 1960s. Both the novel and the film fictionalize the very real history of the Dozier School for Boys, where staff physically and sexually abused hundreds of children with impunity. Decades later, researchers have begun recovering the bodies of an estimated 100 students who died at the school and were buried in unmarked graves, and the state of Florida is offering financial restitution to survivors.
“The book is incredible; Colson’s characters are incredible,” Ross said. “It’s so unprecedented: an opportunity to take this story and make a monument to the human lives that were lost.”
It’s an opportunity Ross attributes to Whitehead himself. After seeing Ross’ directorial debut, the Oscar-nominated “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” the author handpicked him to lead the film adaptation of “The Nickel Boys.”
To Ross, this felt like fate lending a hand. He embraced the chance to bring his unique first-person point-of-view filmmaking style from “Hale County” to a larger, more mainstream audience. Through Ross’ camera, viewers feel as though they’re inside the bodies and minds of the two main “Nickel Boys” characters, Elwood and Turner, as they endure discrimination and abuse. The result is a visceral feeling that transcends mere sympathy. Ross calls the approach “Black subjectivity.”
