At first glance, “Sing Sing” may appear as a musical. Or a prison documentary. Maybe even a crime thriller.
However, A24’s “Sing Sing,” directed by Greg Kwedar, is none of these things.
The film is based on the real Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y. It follows John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo), a prisoner at Sing Sing wrongfully convicted for a crime he did not commit.
As an escape from his reality of prison life, Divine G becomes heavily involved with the RTA program. But when out-of-place gangster Clarence Maclin (played by himself), joins the upcoming comedy production “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code,” viewers will see that this is more than a theater troupe, but a brotherhood.
“Sing Sing” was first shown at film festivals in 2023 and premiered at Alamo Theaters in select cities across the United States on July 9, 2024. After the screening, viewers watched a live Q&A session with Kwedar, Domingo, Maclin, and Sean San Jose, who plays Mike Mike in the film.
“Sing Sing” has been a work in progress for the past eight years, according to Kwedar, who was working on a documentary inside of a max security prison.
“I was immediately struck by the tone of it, like the playfulness of this word juxtaposed against such a dark environment. And it just kind of felt like life to me,” Kwedar said.
When Kwedar reached out to Domingo about a potential film based around RTA, he, too, was inspired by the story of Sing Sing and the men involved with the program, touched by how the arts can connect people — even behind bars.
“These men found something and they were clinging to something that I clung to, which was the theater and the power of the theater,” Domingo said. “And so I thought that there was such a great common language and I thought we could really create something.”
And the connections did not stop there. Not only did Domingo share a passion for the arts with the Sing Sing RTA participants, but the spotlight, as six of the film’s actors went through the program, all playing the role of themselves in the movie.
“We typed stuff up and it would just feel like an imitation of what was really happening and the only way we could ever capture that spirit was to replicate how the program actually operated, which was truly as a community and inviting people into that story,” Kwedar said.
According to Maclin, he and other formerly incarcerated RTA members have a tight community, so when Kwedar and his team reached out about participation in the film, Maclin said it was a “no-brainer.”
“I just know that I got the opportunity to work on and perfect the craft that I was reintroduced to,” Maclin said. “When I was younger, I was artistic and liked to draw and stuff like that, but I suppressed that because it wasn’t the cool thing to do in my neighborhood, and getting into the program and that woke the artistic part of me.
“These wonderful people who were willing to help me perfect that and to bring about a storyteller . . . maybe I could possibly continue to tell stories that affected people.”
“Sing Sing” not only provided the opportunity for real-life RTA members to act in the movie, but to have ownership of it. Kwedar highlighted that everyone on set, from actors to production assistants, worked for the same rate and collectively own the movie.
“I think that’s really specifically important in a movie like this where the men in this film’s direct live experience have literal ownership over their own story,” Kwedar said.
From equitable ownership to the opportunities provided for RTA’s past participants, “Sing Sing” truly emulates the phrase “Trust the process,” displayed on the official movie poster.
“The funny thing is if you ask anyone on the team what trust the process means, you’ll get a different answer,” Kwedar said. “And Johnson in the film [played by himself, Sean Dino Johnson], he told me, ‘Trust the process means people who shouldn’t fit together somehow find a way to fit together.’ I really love that.”
–Aug. 2, 2024–
