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Inspired by a mid-aughts play and a 2005 Esquire article, director Greg Kwedar’s second feature film, Sing Sing, follows a short period in the lives of several incarcerated men who participate in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program. Founded in 1996 and initially launched at the maximum-security Sing Sing Correctional facility, the effort then, and still today, seeks to encourage artistic expression from those living life behind bars. 

The movie, which was the closing-night feature of this year’s Seattle International Film Festival, is almost entirely acted by real-life, once-incarcerated men who found a lifeline in the program; who all are playing versions of themselves; and who universally give lived-in, spirited performances. (First striking you as stoic until he impressively goes happily loose-limbed when an in-film acting exercise calls for it, the tall, heavyset Sean “Dino” Johnson is a particular highlight.) 

Read the full column at South Sound.