Director RaMell Ross (‘Nickel Boys’) is Redefining Cinema

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One week from Oscar Sunday, we’re joined by Nickel Boys director RaMell Ross.

At the top, RaMell describes the formal innovations of the new film (6:44), the naivete that allowed him to make this singular project (8:02), and how photography is shaped by race in ways we don’t consider (12:00). Then, we dive into RaMell’s Virginia upbringing (29:28), the hoop dreams that brought him to Georgetown (29:35), and the “question everything” mindset that took flight in his college years (30:30).

On the back-half, Ross explains the cinematic lineage of his Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening (42:25), his aim to portray the American South in a new light (50:26), and why Nickel Boys is just the beginning of this next chapter in Black cinematic history (57:00).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Guess what? Discover's accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. You heard right 99%. If you don't think so, maybe it's time to face facts. You're stuck in the past. Based on the February 2024 Nilsen report, learn more at discover.com slash credit card.
1:01.1	Lemonada. This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fregoso. Welcome to the show. Today, writer, filmmaker, artist, Rommel Ross.
1:07.2	Born in Germany, Ross was raised in northern Virginia, poised to play in the NBA.
1:14.2	As a wiry six-foot-six guard, he even received a full-ride scholarship to Georgetown University.
1:21.6	Then, unfortunately, fate intervened, as Ross became beset by injuries, first to his shoulder,
1:30.9	then to his foot. By the end of his stint in college, his dreams of playing professional basketball had passed, as had his mother.
1:35.4	In a moving essay called Goodbye Pluto, Ross wrote that,
1:39.3	I started courting photography sometime after my mother got sick.
1:46.9	The abstract questions surrounding the mystery of illness and death found agency in the refuge of the camera,
1:54.8	and it was in that refuge that Ross found both solace and strength to keep moving forward, camera in tow.
2:02.9	A week from today, his debut feature film, Nickel Boys, will be recognized at the Academy Awards, where it received two nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. The film, which is based on the
2:09.0	Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, chronicles the close bond of two black teenagers
2:14.8	who become wards of a juvenile reformatory in 1960s, Florida.
2:20.8	Inside the brutal day-to-day of the Nickel Academy, a profound friendship offers both boys
2:26.6	the potential for transformation and hope. Here's a clip from the trailer.
2:33.0	Gellas!
2:37.1	Man, him. Here's a clip from the trailer. Ed Wood. Manna.
2:39.2	Edward.
2:44.0	It's been a long wait for some good news.
2:49.5	Good news.
2:50.7	Good news. Things news, good news.
2:53.4	Things is changing.
	...

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