Sing Sing | Deadline Studio at TIFF - video Dailymotion

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00:00 My name is Greg Cuidar. I'm the co-writer and director of Sing Sing. It's a movie about

00:11 a theater program inside of a maximum security prison at Sing Sing, one of the world's most

00:16 infamous prisons. But the story is really about this group of people who found a community

00:22 through the arts on the stage. And we told it in a community way with the people who

00:29 really lived it alongside some of our world's greatest actors who share the same spirit

00:35 and heart. And some of these people are sitting right next to me.

00:39 Hey, I'm Paul Raci. I'm playing Brent, a teacher, Brent Bill, a teacher of the acting class

00:48 in prison. And I had such respect for him and some acting teachers that I've met in

00:56 my life. And I can't tell you how many times, on more than three separate occasions, one

01:04 of the men that actually lived the experience in prison told me, "You know, if I just met

01:08 this acting teacher or this program before I did what I did to end up in Sing Sing, I

01:15 wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have been here." And I know that's the truth. It's the truth

01:20 about my life because I met an acting teacher who opened me up. So it's a beautiful story.

01:27 This program changes lives. And there should be many, many more of them in prisons across

01:35 this whole country.

01:36 Hi, my name is Colman Domingo, and I'm an actor and producer on this beautiful film.

01:42 I play John "Divine G" Whitfield. And he is based on a very real human being that I've

01:50 become friends with. And a lot of it is his story, but it's also told in a succinct way.

01:56 And really, it's about brotherhood and friendship. And while they're putting on a play, while

02:01 they're both up for their parole board hearings, and seeing how these men navigate all these

02:08 feelings and conflicts, and look at how this Rehabilitation Through Theatre Arts program

02:14 has made a profound impact on their lives.

02:17 Yes, my name is Clarence Macklin. I play Clarence "Divine I" Macklin in the movie. And this

02:25 film really shines a light on a lot of the things that I had to live and I had to grow

02:30 through while I was in prison. And that's where I really found out what it really takes

02:37 to really be a man, to really stand up as a man. And I learned that through art, through

02:43 communication, through surrounding myself with individuals of a like mind. And I found

02:49 this program, and I found these people in it, and the volunteers that are involved are

02:54 amazing. And they saw me as a human being and not a convict. And that changed the relationship.

03:01 That changed our relationship because of how you see me.

03:04 Well, I mean, when I first got introduced to the program, it was because I had gone

03:10 into a prison for the first time. And all of my expectations, largely driven a lot by

03:16 the movies I had seen about prisons, were completely flipped on their head when I saw

03:20 the beauty and humanity and the complexity and the nuance of the people I met there.

03:27 It just happened to begin a very long journey to finally gain the credibility to tell it.

03:34 It was over seven and a half years that we worked on this project, becoming volunteer

03:40 teachers, teaching acting within the program. And then really when it truly opened up was

03:46 in meeting Clarence and Divine G and together telling the story and then Coleman coming

03:53 in and this really open collaborative process where we all figured out where to take it

04:01 to what we call the arrow shot through the world with my creative partner Clint Bentley.

04:07 You just try to do justice to the feeling first and then see where it guides you if

04:13 you remain open and present to it.

04:15 Well, the relationship is pretty spot on with the relationship with me and Divine G in prison.

04:21 The camaraderie that we shared began when he introduced me to the program, Rehabilitation

04:26 Through the Arts. He really got me into the program. He's a real good brother and he's

04:31 always thinking of other people and trying to help as much as he can without even thinking.

04:36 He's a real selfless person. He don't think about himself much. I think Coleman really

04:41 captured that in his performance. He really gave us a perfect Divine G. He did that.

04:48 Thanks man.

04:50 I appreciate that more than anything because I think there were times when some fellow

04:56 brothers who are in this film would say to me, "You act just like him." I had some beautiful

05:03 moments with him. I was able to sit across from him and have a meal and get to know him

05:06 instead of get to know this very complex human being who's gone through this ordeal in his

05:13 life but also who's also trying to do so much good for people.

05:18 I'll just add the tightrope of honoring a living character who's oftentimes there in

05:27 the next room on set but yet making a whole new creation at the same time. Coleman brought

05:33 so many other dimensions that maybe were somewhere deep down within Divine G. I always felt true

05:38 to the character but it explored it into whole new territories and elevated. These two, they

05:44 got some chemistry. They have some chemistry that they were just like, it was just magnetic.

05:51 Great scene partner. We can dance all over the place.

05:53 Oh yeah. Never over with us.

05:56 Never over.

05:57 There's always more to mine with this guy. I love it. The first thing they sent me was

06:03 this Esquire magazine article on the program at Sing Sing. I thought it was fascinating.

06:07 I thought, "What is this program?" You start to realize that all these guys love what I

06:13 love, especially Shakespeare or Shaw. I thought, "Oh, this is a very great way to explore emotion

06:22 and conflict and find yourself in story." I thought, "This is really compelling."

06:27 Immediately, and then just meeting Clint and Greg, I thought they're the most kind and

06:34 open-hearted collaborators. I thought, "I think we can..." They wanted to invite me

06:38 in to play and invite me in and meet this guy. The first time we were on a Zoom, we

06:43 were just playing. They said, "Oh, we're going to create something together, like the

06:47 way you do on the playground." I think we have an idea about something. As long as we

06:52 put all of our hearts and minds and energy towards it, we can create something new and

06:56 impactful. Even though it was built, the entire way that it's been built was equitable for

07:03 everyone and everyone felt like they had a voice and they were a true partner in the

07:06 experience.

07:07 For me, playing the acting teacher, Brent Beal, who I was on the set for the whole shoot.

07:16 Before I got there, he sent me a manuscript of everything that he'd ever written and

07:21 talked about with these guys. He's an amazing human being, far more than I think of myself.

07:30 He's a real role model. Watching him interact with all the guys that he'd worked with in

07:36 this prison system, it just gave me a real feel for his humanity, his love of not only

07:44 the art, but finding the art that lives inside each human being that he worked with. He's

07:49 a fantastic guy. I'm just so proud to have been on that set with him. He's a great man,

07:55 a great man.

07:56 It feels really gratifying. It feels like the message that we're really trying to get

08:01 out is that there's human people inside these prisons. I think that's the message that's

08:06 getting out. I think that more people that see this will see that there's a more human

08:11 quality to individuals who you might cast off and just write off as worthless. There's

08:18 human inside them. There's a man in them and you can wake them up. Art is the perfect tool

08:22 to do it.

08:23 How many days was it? 18 days to shoot this?

08:26 19 days to shoot this. I shot for 16 of those days. You knew you had to just be on the money

08:32 and bring everything you had. I think even the way, I'll say I applaud the producers

08:39 and everyone who came on board to support this. It was done in a way that it had to

08:47 be really close to you and really organic. Our settings and the decommissioned prisons

08:54 in upstate New York, everything about it, even the fact that the guy who plays Mike

08:59 Mike, Sean San Jose, actually, instead of him going into a hotel room, I was like, "Stay

09:03 with me." We were roommates throughout. We would leave our hotel room as roommates and

09:10 then go and be roommates on set. It's very organic and beautiful, but I love that that

09:17 was the heart and spirit behind it because we knew it had to feel that authentic and

09:21 we had to honor these stories that we've been blessed to be a part of.

09:25 I think a lot of the highlights for me happened off scene, off camera. It was just the fun

09:31 that we was having all throughout.

09:33 My break dancing?

09:34 Yeah, the break dancing. The singing old songs. All the old songs we sang.

09:40 Yes, exactly.

09:41 You know the most old songs.

09:42 Exactly.

09:43 Those are all highlights. It was a great experience from beginning to end. I really hated to

09:50 end. It was great.

09:53 Yeah, for me, getting to know these guys off camera was fascinating. I would just say,

09:59 "So how did you end up here?" Some of these stories were horrific. Horrific. Couldn't

10:04 even believe it, what I was hearing. Here we are doing these. There's one scene we did.

10:08 There's an elaborate scene where we're walking through and everybody has to come up to me,

10:13 all these guys. It was an intricate, complicated scene and these guys have not done hardly

10:22 any acting at all on camera. It was awesome. It was just improvising and being real. These

10:29 guys are really good actors.

10:33 It was a hard movie to talk about when you invite people in. It's very meta. It's a

10:39 movie based on a real program. Oftentimes for the alumni who are in it, it's like, "You're

10:43 going to come in. We're doing a play that you did 15 years ago when you were at Sing

10:47 Sing, but it's also a movie. You're playing a character in the play, but you're also playing

10:51 a version of yourself. There's fiction scenes, but then there's documentary scenes." Then

10:57 they just start to be like, "Let's just go there and we'll see what it's like."

11:03 The best moments for me were when we would just set the camera up and venture a question

11:10 into a circle and people would speak from their own experiences of just the things that

11:14 you never could write. You could only bring that kind of poetry if you had lived it, if

11:21 you had walked it. That's what I'm most excited for people to see.

11:25 [Music]

11:27 (music fades)

Sing Sing | Deadline Studio at TIFF

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