Hello and welcome to Monocle on Culture.
I'm Robert Bounds.
On today's show, we're starting the new year off with a bang by celebrating the release of two fantastic new films.
Nickel Boys is a formally inventive, beautifully rendered adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Colson Whitehead.
We'll hear from the director Romel Ross.
Then the erotic thriller Baby Girl starring Nicole Kidman depicts a lusty affair between a CEO and an intern.
Monocle's Fernando Augusto Pacheco sat down with director Halina Rine to find out more.
That is all coming up here on Monacle On Culture.
A worthy way to bring in 2025, even if we do say so.
Our first up, the film Nickel Boys is adapted From Colson Whitehead's 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, the Nickel Boys.
It tells the story of two African American boys, Elwood and Turner, and their traumatic experience of reform school in 1960s Florida.
Nickel Boys stars Brandon Wilson and Ethan Harisi as those young boys.
And it's the first drama from director Romel Ross, who's known most widely for his 2018 documentary Hale the this Morning, this Evening.
Nickel Boys has already been getting lots of attention in the run up to awards season, most notably for its formal uniqueness.
Shot mostly from the first person perspective, Monocle and Culture producer Sophie caught up with Romel Ross to discuss the film and she began by asking how he feels about the reception it's had so far.
You know, it feels not only incredible but kind of the most type of rewarding because as you know, like the rules of the film, the intention of the film comes from such a sort of organized and integrity filled place that, you know, you're sacrificing a bit of traditional communication with the audience in order to kind of make a statement for cinema and a statement for the dozier boys.
And so it's incredible, like no one's typically rewarded for, you know, doing work that has a bunch of meaning.
Yeah.
As you say, that must feel so satisfying.
It's both.