Co-director Clint Bentley & costars Paul Raci and Clarence Maclin join Domingo to talk about the importance of the film & the behind-the-scenes.
The Big Picture At this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Colman Domingo joins writer and co-director Clint Bentley and costars Clarence Maclin and Paul Raci to celebrate their film Sing Sing from co-director Greg Kwedar. The crew stopped by Collider’s studio at the Cinema Center by MARBL to talk with editor-in-chief Steve Weintraub about bringing such an important film to audiences and the potential it has to raise awareness for serious issues within the prison system.
CLINT BENTLEY: The film is based on a true story about a theater program inside of a maximum security prison at Sing Sing. It is based on, really, a friendship between two men who are in this program in the prison and they are very different people, very different personalities, need very different things from each other and the program; one is Divine G, played by Colman Domingo and the other is Divine Eye, played by Divine Eye.
I really want to commend you guys. I thought this was so well done, and one of the reasons is because of the on-location filming. Everything just felt very authentic, and like the camera was sort of just a silent observer. Can you sort of talk about filming in a real prison and the behind-the-scenes of the making of the movie?
I know you get offered scripts, you've worked on so many different projects, what was it about this project that said, “I absolutely have to do this?” MACLIN: The success of RTA comes from the men in RTA, the people, the participants, the volunteers, individuals being woken up by other men, by other people who care in prison. You have individuals who have been written off by society. Basically, once you get a sentence, 20 years or whatever, society figures you're dead already; you no longer can contribute to society. However, RTA recognized that these men still have something to contribute.
And I love the fact that we all have different experiences, and I thought we had to meet in the middle. Some have more experience on camera than others and then we share with each other, we're like, “Oh hey, if you just did that or this…” and they're like, “Oh, Colman, how about you do this?” I’m like, “Great.” We're sharing with each other to help each other make the most honest experience possible for each other.
Greg did a beautiful job in the direction and in approaching each scene and each moment to create a space for yes, as Colman was saying a minute ago, what the original incarnation of the scene was from the page, but then also opening it up to just whatever truthful thing that any of the men wanted to bring out in that moment and felt comfortable sharing, or felt like it needed to be there. And so, really, the hardest part of the edit was figuring out what to take out.
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