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.
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