2024 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: RaMell Ross’ The Nickel Boys

Definitely the type of film that could end up jockeying for a position at a fall film festival later in the year instead, RaMell Ross who made the miracle (and critically darling of a docu) in the Sundance preemed Hale County This Morning, This Evening moved toward fiction with an adaption of the Colson Whitehead novel The Nickel Boys – a Pulitzer Prize winner. With some major studio weight supporting the project and an indie veteran producer (Joslyn Barnes is also the co-writer) backing the piece and stain in 60s Americana. Starring Aunjanue Ellis, Ethan Herisse, Fred Hechinger, Hamish Linklater and Brandon Wilson, the Cinematography on this project happens to be Jomo Fray – he lensed All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. Production took place late last year in Louisiana and New Orleans.

Gist: Based on the historic reform school in 1960s Florida called the Dozier School for Boys, which was notorious for abusive treatment of students. It explores the story of Elwood Curtis, a young African-American boy who is sent to the Nickel Academy, a fictional version of the Dozier School, after he is falsely accused of a crime. While there, he meets a boy named Turner, and the two form a close friendship as they try to survive the horrors of the school and its corrupt administrators.

Production Co./Producers: Louverture Films’ Joslyn Barnes, Plan B Entertainment’s Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner.

Prediction: Premieres.

U.S. Distributor: Amazon Studios / MGM