Amazon MGM Studios on Thursday debuted the first trailer for Nickel Boys, the first narrative feature from RaMell Ross, whose 2018 doc Hale County This Morning, This Evening brought him an Oscar nomination.
An adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s book The Nickel Boys, which world premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, the film chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.
In Nickel Boys, Elwood Curtis’s (Ethan Herisse) college dream shatters alongside a two-lane, Jim Crow-era Florida highway. Bearing the brunt of an innocent misstep, he’s sentenced to the netherworld of Nickel Academy, a brutal reformatory sunk deep in the Jim Crow South. There, he encounters another ward, the seen-it-all Turner (Brandon Wilson), and the two Black teens strike up an alliance: Turner dispensing fundamental tips for survival, Elwood, clinging to his optimistic worldview. Backdropped by the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Elwood and Turner’s existence appear worlds away from Rev. Martin Luther King’s burnished oratory. But despite Nickel’s brutality, Elwood strives to hold onto his humanity, awakening a new vision for Turner.
Written by Ross & Joslyn Barnes, the awards hopeful also stars Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, David Levine and Joslyn Barnes produced, with Brad Pitt, Gabby Shepard, Emily Wolfe, Kenneth Yu and Chadwick Prichard serving as executive producers.
Check out the trailer for the film set to open the New York Film Festival, which will hit select theaters on October 25, above.