Oscar nominee Colman Domingo’s new movie, “Sing Sing” is assured to drag at your heartstrings. Directed by Greg Kwedar, “Sing Sing” is impressed by the Rehabilitation By way of the Arts (RTA) program based in 1996 at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York.
This system provides incarcerated individuals entry to theater arts which based on the RTA web site is statistically confirmed to assist break the cycle of incarceration with “lower than 3% of RTA members returning to jail, in comparison with 60% nationally.”
A differentiating side concerning the forged of “Sing Sing” is that a number of of the actors, together with Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, had been previously incarcerated males who participated within the RTA theater program. Maclin can also be credited as a author and producer of the movie. His efficiency alongside Colman Domingo has been lauded by critics as a “star-making function.”
The Sentinel requested Maclin how the expertise has modified his life. “I’ve grown up a lot extra due to artwork and being round individuals who share the identical spirit and wish to use the humanities in the identical method. I’m not a special man, I’m only a extra full and extra full particular person due to artwork,” he mentioned.
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The Sentinel additionally spoke to RTA alum and movie co-star Sean “Dino” Johnson and requested how viewers could be part of dismantling a seemingly indomitable industrial jail labor system.
“It begins with getting individuals to convey extra sources into prisons and pour into these women and men as a result of the humanities are probably the most highly effective automobile for transformation,” he mentioned.
Johnson, who presently serves as a board member for RTA and as an government director for one more non-profit group shared, “RTA saved my life. We have to work out extra methods of bringing these sources to individuals and provides them the talent units they must be efficient communicators who can higher themselves.”
The movie’s director, Greg Kwedar, resonates with Johnson’s sentiments relating to the significance of bringing sources to prisons as he and co-screenwriter and producer Clint Bentley beforehand volunteered with an RTA program at Stormville’s Inexperienced Haven Correctional Facility.
Kwedar tells the Sentinel that when it was time to forged the main function in “Sing Sing,” Colman Domingo was his first and solely selection. When Kwedar and Bentley first related with Colman by way of a Zoom name and shared their six-year journey growing the movie, Kwedar recollects Colman saying, ‘“…At this level in my profession, I’m realizing that some initiatives are searching for to show you one thing, you don’t know what it’s, you simply know, that it’s attempting to, and I’m saying sure to that at this level in my life.’ And Colman got here on, and he helped us construct this film,” mentioned Kwedar.
“He introduced all of himself as an actor, as a storyteller, and as a producer. He put the complete weight of his affect behind making this film occur,” added the director.
Following up on what Kwedar shared, The Sentinel requested Colman Domingo what had he discovered from taking part in the function of John “Divine G” Whitfield?
He mentioned, “I’m nonetheless studying, it’s not over but. We’ve got a motto that claims ‘belief the method’. I feel the intention was to be part of one thing that’ll change the minds of human beings. After I came upon how this program works, I needed to be part of serving to to inform a narrative about our humanity, and the way individuals can discover gentle, within the darkest locations, that’s been very intentional and likewise fairly private.”
He added, “I feel I’m nonetheless in the midst of [the journey] the place I really feel like I knew that I deliberately needed to be part of one thing that might present black and brown males in a special gentle.
“We’re nonetheless on this course of, it’s not over but. We created a movie that’s not solely significant, it has the ability to be impactful. It’s not a documentary in any method. And it’s not a ‘jail movie.’ It’s a movie about human beings, working with what they’ve, for the betterment of themselves and society. I’m within the technique of seeing the way it shifts minds and hearts so I’m not on the finish of the journey,” mentioned Domingo.
One other unconventional but distinctive side about “Sing Sing” was its revenue share mannequin which made for a extra equitable set with out the standard topline hierarchies. Producer Clint Bentley shared how Domingo absolutely embraced this.
“One of many foundational pillars of our film was the monetary construction behind the movie, wherein everybody acquired paid the identical price. There’s pay parity, and everybody participates within the income. It’s not [typically] finished this fashion, [with] unbiased movies. So to have Colman as primary on the decision sheet, absolutely embracing that like, ‘Sure, that is how this film must be made,’ was so extremely highly effective in serving to us set the tone for the way in which that we had been doing issues in another way on this movie,” mentioned Bentley.
“To construct from the bottom up this concept that everybody has the identical inherent worth felt empowering and everybody introduced their complete selves to the venture. And for the [RTA] alumni forged, bringing their life expertise to the venture, they had been bringing their tales, after which they had been homeowners of their very own story as effectively,” he famous.
Concluding, Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin shared that his favourite scenes within the movie had been the reenactments of “Hamlet,” “…as a result of I admire Shakespeare a lot.”
He provides, “The entire course of is an expertise that I’d by no means commerce for the rest. Each second, each dialog, each person who I met on set, and each fingerprint on the venture is meant to be there.”
“Sing Sing” distributed by A24 is presently in theaters.
