A Cabin, a Zoom Call and a Race Against the Clock: How Indie Studio Black Bear Ushered ‘Sing Sing’ to the Big Screen

variety.com:

Katcy Stephan Before “Sing Sing” became a critical hit and awards darling, it almost failed to launch. The film, which shows the positive impact that the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program has on a group of incarcerated men, features Colman Domingo as a playwright incarcerated after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

Domingo is one of only three professional actors in the cast, which is otherwise made up alumni of the RTA program. It’s an ambitious project by any measure, but filmmakers Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar and Monique Walton realized — albeit a little late — that it would be near-impossible without industry support. “We just realized that about a month before we started shooting,” says Kwedar, who directed the film. “I remember having a legitimate panic attack.” Mere weeks before filming was set to start in the summer of 2022, the team faced a race against the clock to find the right partners to help get the project off the ground – and they couldn’t settle for just any financier.

They had spent six years at work on “Sing Sing,” so anyone coming in at the eleventh hour needed to understand their vision.

With a precise, three-week window open to shoot and not a day to spare (Domingo had limited time for the project between “The Color Purple” and “Rustin”), Kwedar’s manager threw a Hail Mary, sharing the script with independent studio Black Bear, whose previous projects include “Mudbound” and “The Imitation Game.” “They were three and a half weeks out from filming, and they said, ‘Colman’s going to be here in two weeks, and we really need to figure out how we’re doing this.’ And I said, Well, you’re in luck, because it’s the most beautiful screenplay I’ve ever read.