12/21
Elwood Curtis’s dream of college is shattered on a two-lane highway in Florida. The victim of an innocent mistake, he is sentenced to the hell of Nickel Academy, a brutal reform school buried deep in the Jim Crow heartland of the South. He meets fellow inmate Turner, who has seen it all. The two black teenagers form an alliance: Turner offers basic survival advice, while Elwood clings to his optimistic worldview. Against the backdrop of the burgeoning civil rights movement, Elwood and Turner’s existence seems light years away from the polished eloquence of the Rev. Martin Luther King. Despite Nickel’s brutality, Elwood struggles to maintain his humanity, awakening a new vision in Turner.