A movie adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning book based on the infamous Dozier School for Boys, has been nominated for two Academy Awards.
Nickel Boys, directed by RaMell Ross, has received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film is almost entirely shot from the point of view of boys in the fictitious Nickel Reform School in Florida during the Jim Crow era. The events of the film are based on the real-life Dozier School for Boys.
Hundreds of children who attended Dozier in Marianna and the Okeechobee School were mentally, physically, and sexually abused between 1940 and 1975. Dozens were killed. After years of the survivors fighting for recognition, the State of Florida finally approved $20 million in damages to the survivors last year.
Ross sat down for an extensive interview about his film with WFSU Public Media earlier this month when he visited Tallahassee for a screening of Nickel Boys hosted by Florida A&M University.
In that interview, he said the film was shot in POV in part to portray the experiences of the victims as human beings, instead of shooting a film meant to have the audience watch their suffering from afar.
“There's nothing more interesting than giving subjectivity to characters. It happens very often in writing. It's very difficult to do in cinema, and for the Dozier school boys, it seemed like that gesture was kind of righteous to give them life, to give them vision when their lives were cut short,” he said.
You can read and listen to WFSU’s full interview with Ross here. Nickel Boys is playing in theaters now.
