[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Greg Kwedar, Writer/ Director/Producer: A24 was in the house that night and they saw the film and responded to it. We did three significant page one rewrites of this script, really kind of through instinct. I can’t really explain it but I wrote Colman Domingo as Divine G into my notebook. It’s a constant reminder to the people who are incarcerated of the world moving by and that they’re sort of staying in the same place.
Film Courage: Who is John Divine G Whitfield and what does he mean to you?
Greg: Divine G is at the very center of the story about a very beautiful community of men who found each other inside of Sing Sing and saw and witnessed for themselves and lived the beautiful power of the arts and what it can unlock within us.
Divine G is a founding member of this program. It was started in 1996 inside of Sing Sing and he was one of a few incarcerated men who had a dream to put on a play. They randomly happened upon a woman named Katherine Vockins who happened to be at the facility with her husband who was doing some work there. She was visiting with some of them and they expressed this dream. She’s like Well, let’s do it and they put on this first show and then it just grew into this beautiful program that has been around for decades.
I met Divine G eight years ago when I first started on this project. I discovered this story quite unexpectedly. I had been producing a short documentary inside of maximum prison in Kansas and on a tour of the facility we were doing a film about something else but I passed by a cell and there was a young man raising a rescue dog inside of a cell. I immediately saw the healing that was happening in both actions between this man and this animal. I was desperate to know were there anyone out there doing things differently…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
SING SING in Theaters Now!
About:
Greg Kwedar is a writer, director, and producer. He made his feature directorial debut with Transpecos, which premiered in competition at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival where it won the Audience Award. He co-wrote and produced Jockey, which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition where it won the Special Jury Award for Best Actor (Clifton Collins Jr.). Jockey also won the Audience Award at the AFI Film Festival and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for theatrical release. The film was nominated for an Indie Spirit Award for Best Male Lead and the John Cassavetes Award, and was one of the National Board of Review Top 10 Independent Film of 2021. Kwedar also produced Rising From Ashes, Running with Beto (Winner: SXSW Audience Award 2019), and was co-producer on Ghost Fleet (Telluride & TIFF, 2018). He has spoken to thousands of students across the country and sat on panels about his work at SXSW, Sundance, UNESCO, the United Nations, and more. His latest film Sing Sing, over seven years in the making, which he both directed and co-wrote, premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival where it was acquired by A24 for theatrical release.
MORE VIDEOS WITH GREG KWEDAR
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