Sing Sing true story: Director on the awards-tipped prison rehabilitation drama

Sing Sing shines a light on the real life Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) scheme that was first developed at the titular maximum security prison and has seen countless people take part in theatrical stage productions while incarcerated.

And one of the things that makes the film so remarkable is that, alongside established Oscar nominees Colman Domingo and Paul Raci, the cast is made up of many non-professional actors who are themselves beneficiaries of the programme.

Read on to find out more about the film's true story – straight from its director Greg Kwedar.

Sing Sing true story: How accurate is the prison rehabilitation drama?

Sing Sing was a project that was a long-time in the making for Kwedar. The idea first came to him eight years ago while he had been producing a short documentary inside a maximum security prison in Kansas, and he was instantly struck by something he saw.

"It was my first ever time behind the walls, and we were doing a short on something else, but I passed by a cell and there was a young man raising a rescue dog inside of the cell," he explains during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com.

"And it just stopped me in my tracks, because it completely upended all the expectations I had about prison and incarcerated people, largely built on the movies I grew up watching. But here in this cell was this vision of healing that was happening in both directions between this man and this animal, and I was just desperate to know, was there anyone else out there doing things differently?"

That same night, in his Kansas hotel toom, he typed that very question into Google and stumbled upon the RTA programme in New York. He quickly soaked up lots of information: it had been started at Sing Sing in 1996 and in the time since, members of the group had performed a plethora of classic plays.

But it was one Esquire article from 2005 – titled The Sing Sing Follies (A Maximum Security Comedy) – that instantly captured his imagination and soon became the basis for his script.

"[It was] about the production of a time-travelling musical comedy called Breakin' the Mummy's Code," Kwedar explains. "And I was like, what is that? And I was just so struck by the tone of it, you know, the playfulness of the work juxtaposed against the environment that it was set within. I felt the joy in the process was so contagious, and I was like, I want some Mummy's Code in my life!

"I very quickly reached out to the journalists, the RTA, but also the real life theatre teacher, Brent Buell, who on our first phone call, was like, 'Hey, if you want to really know what this is like, you need to meet the men that lived it. Come to New York, we'll have breakfast at my apartment.'"

And so Kwedar and his creative partner Clint Bentley flew to New York and the seeds for the project were planted.

Buell had for years offered up his apartment to men who didn't have anywhere to stay when they were released from prison and had maintained a number of those relationships, and so several of the men that ended up featured in the film including Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin (who plays himself) and John "Divine G" Whitfield (who is played by Colman Domingo) were present at that first meeting.

"There was just this amazing care and warmth around that room that we just knew that if we could capture that somehow and put it on screen, we'd have something special," he says. "It just took a really long time to finally get there."

A few years into the process, Kwedar and his collaborators had a "breakthrough" where they decided to centre the story on the friendship between Divine Eye and Divine G, and from there, the story came to him very clearly – with his vision for the film spilled out into his notebook in about 10 minutes.

After that, he didn't look back, as it also tied in with an idea that he was already developing to feature the men who had been through the programme as prominently as possible.

"We knew we wanted alumni to feature into the movie, we were aware of the vast talent in the programme," he explains. "And that confidence didn't lessen with time. It only deepened. And it was an evolution from featuring the cast in the film somehow, to a time realising, 'Oh no, this is the life force of the movie.'"

As for the matter of directing a bunch of actors who were making their film debuts, Kwedar says it was "less challenging than you might think". And, in fact, in many ways he found it to be a hugely refreshing process.

"These are people that are so transparent and vulnerable and so accessible emotionally, as well as just sort of game to try anything," he explains. "There was like this wonderful spirit on set that is part of just the excitement around making their first movie but also a movie about something they're very, very proud of in their lives.

"It was like a beacon to all of us that kind of shook the cobwebs of any of our industry jaded minds, you know – it kind of reminded us how it felt when we first got into the business. And there was, I think, a posture that happened on the whole crew, but especially in the cast.

"That was this exchange that was happening from our established actors like Colman Domingo and Paul Raci and Sean San Jose, who came in and had a lot to offer and teach the rest of the cast who had never acted in a film before, about blocking, about building a character across that long of a shoot, about bringing it all down, the most subtle things conveying really loudly on a screen versus on a stage.

"But our established cast also had quite a lot to learn from our alumni, who had really lived this and knew what these things really felt like. And so it's how can you both be a teacher and a student at the same time? And I think we all kind of embraced that."

Kwedar also wanted to include as many of the alumni's personal stories as possible within the film, and one way in which this manifested was in a scene which he calls Perfect Places. In it, acting coach Brent (Raci) asks the men to close their eyes and imagine a perfect place, before recounting those memories to the group.

"That [Raci's command] is the only thing scripted about that scene," Kwedar says. "When everyone opens their eyes in the circle, if someone wanted to share where they just went, we would find them with the camera. And the things that were shared were true from their own lives and what was real to them in that moment.

"Everyone in the circle spoke, and we used almost everyone's story," he adds. "They were all great, honestly, really distinct of each person.

"But that was the hardest material to work with in the edit, because anytime I felt like someone was sharing from their own life it was very hard to cut anything, because there was something very precious about that that felt bigger than what we were doing as a film. But at the end of the day, like, in the service of the greater story we're telling, you have to make some decisions!"

The film closes with a pretty incredible statistic: of all the people who have taken part in the programme over the years, the five-year reoffending rate upon release is under 5 per cent – compared to a national average in the US of over 60 per cent. Whatever way you look at it, it's an incredible endorsement of the success of the programme.

"It's a staggering statistic," agrees Kwedar. "But, you know, it's also quite obvious: give people access to education, to art, and they will thrive. If you take a mindset of punishment, and you make someone feel less than human, you will get, you know, the opposite of that."

Since that premiere in Toronto last year, it's been incredibly rewarding for Kwedar to see the reactions of people at screenings around the world. But there is one screening in particular which stands out.

"The most surprising and profound was screening the movie inside Sing Sing to an incarcerated audience," he says. "They also laughed the same moments and cried the same moments. But there were things that were very distinct about screening there, and a recognition from that audience particularly around the end of the movie.

"When our characters experience freedom, there were definitely men in that audience... you just felt them yearning for that fresh air on their face, and then for us to walk out those gates as a civilians and get to feel that. You know how precious it is and it's a sobering recognition that the audience we just shared the movie with is still inside."

And what of that awards buzz – is it something Kwedar pays much attention to?

"It's complicated," he says. "On the one hand, to be in an awards conversation, the reality is that it drives more oxygen and attention towards the story that we all care a lot about. On the other hand, it's very odd – as it was made in such a community way – to talk about individual trophies.

"This movie was made – and it's a tagline of the programme – by trusting the process. And I think trusting the process is not focusing on results or some distant future goal, but the work of now and to be present for that, and to recognise the gift of the moment that we're in.

"And then, if we find ourselves on those stages... I'm sure we'll hopefully approach it with that same gratitude."

Sing Sing is released in now showing in UK cinemas. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.