RaMell Ross

RaMell Ross
Ross at the 2018 Montclair Film Festival
Born1982 (age 42–43)
Frankfurt, Germany
Education
Occupation(s)Film director, photographer, professor
Notable workNickel Boys (2024)

RaMell Ross is an American filmmaker, photographer, academic, and writer best known for his 2018 documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening and the 2024 film adaptation of the novel The Nickel Boys (2019), the latter of which he directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Joslyn Barnes, for which he won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.[1][2][3]

Early life and education

Ross was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and raised in Fairfax, Virginia, where he attended Lake Braddock Secondary School.[4][5]

In 2005, Ross graduated from Georgetown University, where he majored in English and sociology and played on the Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team.[1][5] He later earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design.[5]

Career

In 2006, Ross moved to Ireland to work for Playing For Peace's Northern Ireland initiative. While in Ireland he played professional basketball for MDS Star of the Sea Belfast, a team in Ireland's SuperLeague North Division. It was here he would first get an interest in directing and video editing as he worked as an apprentice of the video editor for North Star Basketball. [6]

In 2009, Ross moved to Greensboro, Alabama for a position as a basketball coach and photography teacher.[6] These experiences inspired multiple collections of photographs and art installments inspired by Black life in the American South.[7]

Filmmaker Magazine named Ross among "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2015. That year, he was a Sundance Institute New Frontier Artist in Residence at the MIT Media Lab.[8] He joined faculty of the Brown Arts Initiative at Brown University in 2016, where he currently serves as an assistant professor of visual art.[9] Soon after, he was awarded a two-year Mellon Gateway Fellowship.[10]

Ross' directorial debut, Hale County This Morning, This Evening, an experimental documentary about Black life in Hale County, Alabama, premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.[11] He was awarded the Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at the festival. The film went on to win a Peabody Award and in 2019 was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Primetime Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking.[12]

Easter Snap, Ross' documentary short depicting five men preparing a hog to be butchered in a ritualistic fashion, debuted at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.[13][1]

The Ogden Museum of Southern Art presented a retrospective of Ross' artwork, titled Spell, Time, Practice, American, Body: The Work of RaMell Ross from October 2021 to March 2022. A book of Ross' work titled Spell Time, Practice, American, Body was released in 2023.[7]

Nickel Boys, Ross' film adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel The Nickel Boys, debuted at the Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2024.[14] The film opened the 2024 New York Film Festival.[15]

Filmography

Year Title Notes Ref.
2018 Hale County This Morning, This Evening — [1]
2019 Easter Snap Documentary short [13]
2024 Nickel Boys — [15]

Awards and nominations

Year Award Category Nominated work Result Ref.
2018 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Award for Creative Vision Hale County This Morning, This Evening Won [1]
Gotham Awards Best Documentary Won[a] [11]
2019 Academy Awards Best Documentary Feature Film Nominated[a] [1]
Primetime Emmy Awards Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking Nominated[b] [1]
Peabody Awards Documentary Category Won[c] [12]
Chicago International Film Festival Best Documentary Short Easter Snap Won [1]
2024 Georgia Film Critics Association Best Director Nickel Boys Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay Won[d]
Breakthrough Award Won

Notes

  1. ^ a b Shared with Joslyn Barnes and Su Kim.
  2. ^ Shared with Joslyn Barnes, Su Kim, and Lois Vossen.
  3. ^ Recognized as one of ten honorees.
  4. ^ Shared with Joslyn Barnes

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "RaMell Ross". United States Artists. Retrieved August 9, 2024.
  2. ^ Kramer, Karen (December 14, 2024). "How RaMell Ross' 'Nickel Boys' Embraces and Expands the Legacy of Stanley Kramer (Guest Column)". Variety. Retrieved December 15, 2024.
  3. ^ Lewis, Hilary (December 3, 2024). "New York Film Critics Circle Names 'The Brutalist' as Best Film of 2024". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 16, 2024.
  4. ^ "Spell, Time, Practice, American, Body: The Work of Ramell Ross at the Ogden Museum". Lenscratch. 17 March 2022. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  5. ^ a b c "RaMell Ross". Hoya Basketball. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  6. ^ a b "Former Hoya Standout Ramell Ross Playing in Ireland, Playing for Peace". Brown Alumni Magazine. 28 November 2006. Retrieved 3 January 2025. Cite error: The named reference "bam" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b Orr, Niela. "The Literary Lexicon of RaMell Ross". Oxford American. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  8. ^ "RaMell Ross". Ogden Museum of Southern Art. 22 June 2017. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  9. ^ "Artist, scholar RaMell Ross heads to the Oscars with 'Hale County' up for best documentary". Brown University. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  10. ^ "Brown Arts Institute FY18" (PDF). Brown University. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  11. ^ a b "RaMell Ross - Hale County This Morning, This Evening". New York University. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  12. ^ a b "Peabody 30 Winners". Peabody Awards. 24 August 2020. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  13. ^ a b "Easter Snap". Field of Vision. Retrieved 9 August 2024.
  14. ^ Feinberg, Scott. "Telluride: 'Nickel Boys,' Adapted from Colson Whitehead's Book, Will Challenge Oscar Voters". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  15. ^ a b "RaMell Ross's Nickel Boys Will Open the 62nd New York Film Festival". Film at Lincoln Center. 22 July 2024. Retrieved 9 August 2024.