Join us Tuesday, October 21st at 7:00 p.m. for a special screening of Nickel Boys – the Oscar-nominated film adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel!
In honor of Whitehead’s in-person visit to Ohio U on Wednesday, October 22nd
For more info about the Colson Whitehead visit, click the link below:
Ohio University Libraries Presents: Colson Whitehead
Admission is FREE and open to the Public – Tickets are required
About the film
Elwood, a young African-American boy, is coming of age in Florida during the 1960’s Jim Crow era. Even in the midst of the tense racial attitudes that were dividing society at that time, Elwood’s future appears bright: he is awarded an opportunity to attend an HBCU’s honor’s program tuition-free. While hitchhiking to class, however, Elwood is picked up by a man driving a stolen car and the two are pulled over by the police. Elwood is unfairly arrested as an accomplice, and his hopeful trajectory through life is forever changed as he is transferred to a segregated reform school – The Nickel Academy – which is notorious for is brutal abuse of black students. He meets and befriends Turner, another student, and the two learn to rely on each other to make it through the tough environment even though their ideas about how black people should integrate into white society are very different.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead about the infamous “Dozier School”, and written and directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys uses the unique approach of presenting the visual narrative of the film through the first-person perspective – in other words, through the eyes of the protagonists. The film has also been nominated for and won several prestigious awards on the film festival circuit for its script, cinematography, and direction.
Special thanks to the following organizations for sponsoring this event: Ohio University Honor’s Tutorial College, Cutler’s Scholars, University Libraries, and the Ohio U English Department
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140 MIN
Travis Eskins is a graduate student in the Film Studies program at Ohio University. He was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia, where he studied Film and English Literature at Marshall University. His work is focused on depictions of labor movements in film, especially those from the Appalachian region. He is currently teaching a course on films set in Appalachia. 
Juan Andres Ravell, director, is an audio producer and documentary director from Caracas Venezuela. In 2008, Juan co-founded El Chigüire Bipolar, a wildly popular political satire website that used humor to bypass government censorship in Venezuela. In 2018, Juan branched into investigative journalism collaborating in projects with reporters from Armando.Info, IDL Reporteros and Columbia Journalism School. Juan recently directed the investigative documentary feature “A Dangerous Assignment” for FRONTLINE PBS.
Patricia Marcano Meza is a Venezuelan editor and investigative reporter who has covered the corruption of the Maduro government for Armando.info. 
Kelly Hatas is the Executive Director of Hocking Athens Perry Community Action (HAPCAP), an antipoverty nonprofit organization headquartered in Athens County. She earned her BA in International Relations from Shawnee State University in 2007 and went on to serve as an AmeriCorps*VISTA for three years there. That experience led to her interest in the nonprofit sector, and she earned her Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service at Ohio University in 2012. She has spent the rest of her professional career with HAPCAP, one of 1,000 Community Action Agencies that were established across the country as part of then President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. Kelly grew up in Southwest Ohio, and will talk about how her perspective shifted after moving to, and choosing to stay in Appalachia. She lives in Athens County with her wife and two dogs.
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