And the Oscar could go to…a Fairfax County Public Schools graduate!
RaMell Ross, an alum of Lake Braddock Secondary School, will get his second chance to win an Academy Award this Sunday (March 2), when he and co-writer Joslyn Barnes are competing in Best Adapted Screenplay for “Nickel Boys.”
Ross was previously nominated in 2019 in the Best Documentary Feature Film category for his feature directorial debut, “Hale County This Morning, This Evening.” The movie — which showcased African American life in Hale County, Alabama, where Ross lived from 2009 to 2012 — lost the Oscar to “Free Solo.”
For his first fictional feature film, Ross carried over some of the experimental style seen in “Hale County” to “Nickel Boys,” utilizing an unconventional first-person point of view, a nonlinear narrative and archival footage.
He was left out of Best Director, but his adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel about two boys in a violent, exploitative reform school landed one of the 10 available Best Picture nominations.
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1982 to military parents, Ross and his family soon moved to Fairfax, where he grew up. In high school, he played as a guard on Lake Braddock’s boys basketball team, averaging 20.7 points a game and earning regional and district player awards during his junior year as well as McDonald’s All American and All-Met mentions.
Though a shoulder injury sidelined him for his senior year in 2000, Ross had already secured a basketball scholarship to Georgetown University, where he earned bachelor degrees in sociology and English and played with the Hoyas for parts of four seasons.
According to various profiles, Ross found a passion for visual art, particularly photography and filmmaking, after injuries disrupted his college basketball career. He recently told the Washington Post that he sees both disciplines — art and sports — as a form of time travel.
“There’s a way in which athletes dilate time,” Ross told Post columnist Kevin B. Blackistone. “… That’s where a person’s talent is, being able to read, being able to control these micro moments for greater goals. And if that is not film and photography, I don’t know what is.”
Now living in Providence, Rhode Island, where he teaches in the visual arts department at Brown University, Ross told WAMU’s All Things Considered that his memories of growing up in Northern Virginia mainly revolve around outdoor activities, including “skateboarding, rollerblading, playing basketball, just kind of being a kid.”
After this year’s Oscar nominees were announced on Jan. 23, Braddock District Supervisor James Walkinshaw highlighted Ross’ status as a Lake Braddock graduate in his newsletter.
“Fairfax County is proud of RaMell’s accomplishments on the silver screen and on the court,” Walkinshaw wrote. “I’m excited to watch the Oscars and root for the former Bruin!”
Other movies vying for the adapted screenplay trophy on Sunday include the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” Edward Berger’s Vatican-set thriller “Conclave,” the polarizing musical “Emilia Pérez,” and “Sing Sing,” a prison drama starring Colman Domingo and a cast of formerly incarcerated actors.
With the exception of “Sing Sing,” all of the nominees in that category are also up for Best Picture, where “Nickel Boys” will hope to upset predicted frontrunner “Anora.”
Set to start at 7 p.m., the Oscars will be televised on ABC and stream live online for the first time via Hulu.
