NY Film Festival Sets RaMell Ross’ ‘Nickel Boys’ as Opening Night Selection

The 2024 New York Film Festival will open with RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys , it was announced today.

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The movie, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, stars Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.

Nickel Boys , which Ross directed from a script he wrote with Joslyn Barnes based on Whitehead’s book, will screen Sept. 27.

The Nickel Boys follows two Black teenagers (Herisse and Wilson) unjustly sentenced to a brutal reform school, the Nickel Academy, in Jim Crow-era Florida.

“What an absolute honor for Nickel Boys to open the 62nd New York Film Festival…a daydream really, for the crew, the cast and team who’ve committed so wholeheartedly to its vision,” said Ross, who received acclaim as well as Oscar and Emmy nominations for his 2018 documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening . “It feels almost full circle, given Hale County This Morning, This Evening ’s selection in 2018’s New Directors/New Films program. The New York Film Festival in particular constellates much of what one aspires toward through filmic production. Since just after my undergrad when I was wooed by the still and moving image, it has been an extraordinary compendium for global aesthetics.”

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NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim added, “ Nickel Boys signals the emergence of a major filmmaking voice. RaMell Ross’ fiction debut, like his previous work in photography and documentary, searches for new ways of seeing and, in so doing, expands the possibilities of visual language. It’s the most audacious American movie I have seen in some time, and we are excited and honored to open the New York Film Festival with it.”

Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, David Levine and Barnes produce Nickel Boys , which will be released in theaters by Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios on Oct. 25, expanding through the fall.

The 62nd New York Film Festival, presented by Film at Lincoln Center, is set to run from Sept. 27 to Oct. 14.

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