Sing Sing (2024) on Netflix
Divine G is at Sing Sing, convicted of a crime he says he did not commit. There he has become the leading playwright and performer in the prison's theater group.
- Netflix4.4/5
- IMDb7.6/1030,852 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes98%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 2005, Divine G is serving time at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where he has found purpose in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, a theater group of incarcerated men led by Brent Buell. He has become its leading playwright and performer, admired by the other men for his emotional range, and he keeps working to prove his innocence. As the group prepares a new production, Divine G helps recruit members, among them Clarence Maclin, known as Divine Eye, a gruff inmate who dismisses acting as pointless. The two disagree over the next play: Divine G wants a drama, while Divine Eye argues for a comedy, and most of the men side with him. Divine Eye then tries out for the single dramatic part in that comedy, which puzzles Divine G.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sing Sing (2024)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- To keep the budget low, every cast and crew member on Sing Sing was paid the same daily salary in exchange for a percentage of equity that varied with their level of production involvement; with one month to go before filming, Black Bear Pictures agreed to fully finance the film.
- Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin, who began acting as an inmate at Sing Sing, chose to play a version of himself under his own name after Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley offered to invent a character with a fictitious name for him; he called it "my own arrogance".
- The three main filming locations were the decommissioned Downstate Correctional Facility and the nearby Hudson Sports Complex, both of which doubled for exteriors and interiors of the real Sing Sing prison, plus Beacon High School in Upstate New York, where the RTA theater productions were filmed.
- Cinematographer Pat Scola shot Sing Sing on 16 mm, framing it in 1.66:1 and relying on a 25 mm lens for the intimate close-ups of faces that he called "our landscape".
- Sing Sing was filmed over 19 days in July 2022 inside decommissioned correctional facilities, which were reportedly tough environments to be in logistically and for the formerly incarcerated actors to return to, even with a counselor in tow.
