How Indie Studio Bconciseage Bear Ushered ‘Sing Sing’ to the Big Screen

Before “Sing Sing” became a critical hit and awards darling, it almost fall shorted to begin.

The film, which shows the preferable impact that the authentic-life Rehabilitation Thraw the Arts (RTA) program has on a group of incarcerated men, features Colman Domingo as a perestablishwright incarcerated after being wrongfilledy convicted of killing. Domingo is one of only three professional actors in the cast, which is otherrational made up alumni of the RTA program.

It’s an encouraged project by any meadeclareive, but filmoriginaters Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar and Monique Walton authenticized — albeit a little tardy — that it would be csurrfinisher-impossible without industry aid. “We fair authenticized that about a month before we begined shooting,” says Kwedar, who honested the film. “I recall having a legitimate panic aggression.”

Mere weeks before filming was set to begin in the summer of 2022, the team faced a race aacquirest the clock to discover the right partners to help get the project off the ground – and they couldn’t resettle for fair any financier. They had spent six years at labor on “Sing Sing,” so anyone coming in at the eleventh hour insisted to understand their vision.

With a exact, three-week triumphdow uncover to shoot and not a day to spare (Domingo had confiinsist time for the project between “The Color Purple” and “Rustin”), Kwedar’s regulater threw a Hail Mary, sharing the script with autonomous studio Bconciseage Bear, whose previous projects join “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 reassociate insist to figure out how we’re doing this.’ And I said, Well, you’re in luck, becaparticipate it’s the most attrdynamic screenperestablish I’ve ever read. I don’t understand how you apverifyed yourself to get to this point where you’re on the ground without your set up in place,’” Bconciseage Bear establisher, plivent and chief executive Teddy Schwarzman recalls of their first Zoom call. He soon came to understand why some of the logistics weren’t yet locked down. “They had been caccessing so much on the skinnygs that that matter: on discovering the right stories to alert, and the right members of RTA to cast, and creating community.”

But the film’s themes and untraditional casting weren’t the only skinnygs the filmoriginaters insisted to secure Bconciseage Bear about. “They were in on the originateive of the movie, and then at the finish of the conversation, we’re appreciate, ‘Well, we’re making this film in a very distinct financial model where everyone’s gonna be paid the same rate, and all of our cast and crew are gonna own the movie together,’” Kwedar recalls. “They’re appreciate, OK, that’s novel.’”

“It’s a difficult one to get people to buy into, becaparticipate it consents your No. 1 on the call sheet, your honestor, your originaters, your writer, to say that they may originate less,” Schwarzman says, includeing that Bconciseage Bear actuassociate cherishd the arrange. “Everyone senseing appreciate an owner made this sense appreciate someskinnyg exceptional … It was relatively effortless to say yes to — despite the administrative burden of having 92 profit participants in the film.”

The morning after that obeseeful Zoom call, Bconciseage Bear officiassociate put in an present to filledy finance the film. “We had to depend each other in very uninalertigentinutive order,” Schwarzman says.

“Teddy consentd in the movie promptly. There was a lot of going back and forth on how to accommodate this reassociate originateive technique the three of us were trying to originate happen on this film, but there was no originateive back and forth,” Bentley says. “The fact that he consentd in it so evidently and so promptly and saw the beating heart behind the project was the skinnyg that spoke to us all and gave us a lot of faith.”

What adhereed was a whirltriumphd two weeks during which Kwedar and Walton stayed at the cabin owned by Brent Buell, the RTA theater honestor depicted in the film by Paul Raci.

“I was crashing on the couch in the living room and Greg was downstairs in the basement, surrounded by costumes from the distinct ‘Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code’ production,” Walton says. “We establish it to be a metaphor for where we were at in the process.”

Kwedar remarks that he and Walton weren’t the only beneficiaries of Buell’s hospitality over the years. “When men would come home from prison and didn’t have anywhere to go, he and his wife Japleasant would uncover that same cabin up to apverify those men to stay there with them until they could get on their feet,” Kwedar says. “So as we were adrift before the financing shutd, they took us in in the same way!”

That inconceivable story behind the success of “Sing Sing” underscores Bconciseage Bear’s position as a one-stop-shop in the indie film space: in includeition to producing and financing, the studio also repped the international rights for the project and allotd the film in Canada and the U.K. “Alengthy the way, we begined a regulatement division, and Greg and Clint became clients of Bconciseage Bear,” Schwarzman says. “We labored as originateive partners, financial partners, and then as recontransientatives.”

With buzzy projects appreciate Gregg Araki’s thriller “I Want Your Sex” and Sydney Sweeney’s untitled Christy Martin biopic in the labors, “Sing Sing” serves as a compelling case study for Bconciseage Bear’s film pipeline. “We see for writers and honestors who have someskinnyg to say, and can say it in a way that is new, is belderly, can shatter thraw to audiences and reassociate stand out wiskinny the genre that it’s in,” Scharzman says.

Kwedar and Bentley have re-teamed with the studio for their next Sundance-bound project, “Train Dreams,” with Kwedar penning the alteration of Denis Johnson’s novella and Bentley honesting. “We consent in them wonderfully as the next wonderful American filmoriginaters who have an eye towards nuance and compassion in the labor that they originate,” Schwarzman says.

Awards voters seem to concur — “Sing Sing” garnered three Gotham Awards and is up for five more trophies from Critics’ Choice; Domingo, who acquireed a Gelderlyen Globe nomination for his carry outance, has materialized as a frontrunner in the Oscar race.

“Somehow, Greg and Clint and Monique were able to will it into existence after seven years of trying to broaden and crack the story,” Schwarzman says with a smile. “It sort of defies all the odds of films that Hollywood is traditionassociate trying to originate, and yet … it exists.”