United States • d: RaMell Ross • R • 2h 20m
A stirring follow-up to his directorial debut Hale County This Morning, This Evening, RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel is a biting, visually adventurous coming-of-age story set in Jim Crow-era Florida. Elwood (Ethan Herrise) is an idealistic Black highschooler whose aims of attending college are upended when racist law officials falsely accuse and then convict him of a crime, pulling him away from the loving arms of his grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor). At Nickel Academy, an abusive reformatory school, Elwood befriends a world-weary Turner (Brandon Wilson). Arrestingly gorgeous and daringly immersive, Ross effortlessly switches decades—the story spans the 1960s to the 2010s and changes perspectives. As it swims through memories, traumas, friendships, archival footage, and moments of defiance, Ross’ film offers a radical gaze at the perils of Black boyhood.
About the Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival has been, for the last 50 years, a celebration of the art of film: honoring the great masters of the cinema, discovering the rare and unknown, bringing new works by the world’s greatest directors and the latest in American independent film to a small mountain town in Colorado. The New York Times called Telluride “the smallest, most original, and most stimulating of the major festivals,” while Entertainment Tonight simply said it was “the world’s best festival.”
About Telluride By The Sea
The Music Hall and the Telluride Film Festival collaborate on an exclusive presentation of six new features, brought directly from their Colorado debuts. This unique and intimate Portsmouth event treats audience members from across the Northeast to an exclusive peek into the Telluride experience—packing one September weekend in Portsmouth with the latest international cinema, private parties, great music, delicious food, and inspired conversations with other cinephiles of all ages, tastes, and backgrounds.
Schedule
Fri., 9/13 • 7pm • Conclave
Sat., 9/14 • 1pm • Memoir of a Snail
Sat., 9/14 • 3:30pm • Nickel Boys
Sat., 9/14 • 7:30pm • Saturday Night
Sun., 9/15 • 12pm • The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Sun., 9/15 • 4pm • Will & Harper
Sun., 9/15 • 7:30pm • Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
