"Nickel Boys," the buzzed-about film that’s an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, is not a happy story. Based on a true story about a reform school in Florida with dark secrets, "Nickel Boys" follows what happens when a bright, studious young man named Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is wrongfully accused of a crime in the early 1960s and sent to the Trevor Nickel Academy, where the “reform” boys receive is actually mental, physical, and sexual abuse—sometimes even death. It’s a brutal, heartbreaking tale rooted in the truth of what really happened at that Florida school—a truth uncovered in 2012 when officials found more than 50 graves at the site.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who plays Elwood's grandmother and primary caregiver Hattie, is aware that, in recent years, Black viewers have become more vocal about their aversions to Black trauma on screen. And by all accounts, "Nickel Boys" qualifies as traumatic; even if you haven’t read the book to know what happens, we can feel the danger and sense of doom Elwood faces the moment we see him. Yet Taylor has a succinct and unapologetic response to those who dismiss "Nickel Boys" as more Black trauma porn.

“I don't care,” she tells BET.com on a recent junket. “I don’t. I believe that Black makers, whether you're a maker of a film, or you're writing a book, screenplay, or you jump Double Dutch, whatever you're making—that’s God's work. And when we edit that and say that ‘We don't need to see that anymore,’ we're limiting our creation. I’m not interested in that.”

She’d much rather focus on what "Nickel Boys" has to say, and how it says it. "Nickel Boys" is generating lots of awards buzz—it won Best Picture at both the Chicago and Toronto Film Critics Association Awards, Movie of the Year at the American Film Institute’s awards, and is steadily racking up nominations that hint it’s an Oscar contender—and a lot of that has to do with "Nickel Boys"’ unorthodox approach to storytelling.

For much of the film, director RaMell Ross points the camera away from the protagonist, instead focusing on what he’s seeing. We therefore experience what Elwood is experiencing as he sees it, through his eyes (and occasionally other characters’ points of view), making us extra empathetic to his perspective. It’s a radical technique that makes for a potent and sometimes chilling journey.

“​​Shooting a film like this… as opposed to being observers of Black pain, we experience Black pain, and particularly the pain of Black children,” Taylor says. “We cannot remove ourselves from it. If someone is looking at us in a certain way, derisively, or even with love, they are looking at us. [It makes you consider] what that does to us, to feel that.”

Taylor, who shines in several films this year including "Deliverance" and "Exhibiting Forgiveness", says Ross was her main motivating factor in taking on the role in "Nickel Boys". A first-time feature film director, Ross earned rave reviews and an Oscar nomination for his 2018 documentary "Hale County This Morning" about the lives of Black people in Alabama, and Taylor says she was dying to work with him after seeing it.

“I was a little blown away that he wanted me to be a part of his first narrative film,” Taylor says, “because I wanted so badly to do anything that he did. It didn't matter what it was, how big or how small.”

With more than 30 years of acting—as well as Oscar and Emmy nominations ("King Richard"; "When They See Us", "Lovecraft Country")—under her belt, it’s safe to say that Taylor holds her own in front of a camera. Yet there was a moment while filming that even she was flummoxed by the creative liberty Ross was taking, and she even called him out on it.

“I was so mad doing that scene,” she says, referring to a tense moment in "Nickel Boys" where she, playing Hattie, channels her rage and frustration into cutting a slice of cake. “The reason I was so mad was that RaMell had the camera way [far away] and I’m acting here. I was like, ‘Ain’t nobody gonna see this!’ I was mad. I had the knife in my hand, and she was slicing at that pain.” Her frustration in the moment gave way to satisfaction, of course (“It was such a dope scene that he wrote,” she says), and now Taylor is yet again shooting to the top of best-of-the-year lists, with consideration for awards including Best Supporting Actress at the Critics Choice Awards in January.

For her, though, this story is bigger than awards or even gaining acceptance among people who merely want more easy-to-digest representation on screen.

“The way that RaMell shoots 'Nickel Boys' is not just adding more stories to the pile,” she says. “It's questioning and interrogating how we do it. It is saying even the camera itself has participated in the violence and erasure of Black people. I believe that kind of work, whether you like 'Nickel Boys' or not, is worth doing.”

"Nickel Boys" is playing now in New York, opens in Los Angeles Dec. 20, and expands nationwide in January.