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The Guardian
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Best films of 2025 in the UK so far
Adaptation of Colson Whitehead novel is an intensely moving story of two friends trapped in a racist reform school, told with piercing beauty by RaMell Ross. What we said: 'There are wonderful moments of humanity and hope; I don't usually respond to 'hug' moments in drama: and yet the (soon to be classic) scene here in which a woman has to hug her grandson's friend in the absence of the grandson himself is overwhelming.' Read the full review. Writer/director/actor Jesse Eisenberg effortlessly walks a tonal tightrope in this film about Jewish American cousins on a Holocaust tour in Poland, with Kieran Culkin stealing the show. What we said: 'This is an effortlessly witty, fluent and astringent comedy with a very serious overcurrent. It is a road movie which is partly about the Holocaust and about America's third-generation attempt at coming to terms with it, at confronting what their parents and grandparents found too painfully recent to revisit, or necessary to forget in order to survive. And partly it's about family, male friendship and growing older.' Read the full review. Fictionalised true crime nightmare based on Denmark's 1921 baby-killer case, directed by Magnus von Horn, that leaves a shiver of pure fear. What we said: 'It is about a world in which women's lives are disposable and in which the authorities are disapproving of and disgusted by their suffering – and set at a time in which the first world war had normalised the idea of mass murder.' Read the full review. Angelina Jolie's Callas commands the screen in Pablo Larraín's strange and mordant drama that portrays the diva's haughty struggle as her voice begins to fail but her stardom remains undimmed. What we said: 'Maria is the most persuasive and seductive of Larraín's trilogy of great women at bay, after Jackie about Jackie Kennedy, and Spencer about Princess Diana. There is less sentimentality and self-importance to this one though, for all that it is about the biggest diva in history.' Read the full review. Huge and wayward docu-fictional meditation goes inside inside the beautiful mind of Pablo Escobar's hippo, shipped out to furnish the Colombian druglord's estate. What we said: 'The hippo, as a German tour guide tells us at the very beginning, may look fat and placid and rather cute, but it's fast-moving, aggressive and dangerous to humans; perhaps the film itself, so mysteriously distended with huge digressions and non-narrative scenes, is as exotically fleshy and strange as a hippo. Yet it has bite.' Read the full review. Maura Delpero's beautifully made drama explores the complex dynamics of a sprawling family in an idyllic Italian village near the wartime border with Germany. What we said: 'It is wonderfully acted with unaffected naturalism by its cast of professionals and newcomers and plays an extravagant, almost shameless pizzicato on the audience's heartstrings.' Read the full review. James Mangold's biopic of Bob Dylan follows the rise of the era-defining star with Timothée Chalamet brilliantly embodying his shapeshifting allure. What we said: 'Chalamet is a hypnotic Dylan, performing the tracks himself and fabricating to a really impressive degree that stoner-hungover birdsong. He does a very passable version of Don't Think Twice, with the distinctive, eccentric intonations, singing as if he's not entirely sure of the tune and appearing to run out of breath at the end of every line.' Read the full review. Epic postwar architectural drama with Adrien Brody as a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who comes to the US and begins a distinguished career under the patronage of a wealthy man. What we said: 'This is a film with thrilling directness and storytelling force, a movie that fills its widescreen and three-and-a-half-hour running time with absolute certainty and ease, as well as glorious amplitude, clarity and even simplicity – and yet also with something darkly mysterious and uncanny to be divined in its handsome shape.' Read the full review. One of Ireland's most important novelists and a woman of fierce intelligence and bravery is celebrated in Sinéad O'Shea's thoroughly enjoyable documentary. What we said: 'This portrait of the author Edna O'Brien is a reminder that most writers – most people, in fact – don't have lives anywhere near as exciting or fulfilling as hers.' Read the full review. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is exceptional as a woman in the terrifying endgame of depression in this deeply sober and compassionate drama, a Mike Leigh classic of day-to-day disillusionment and courage. What we said: 'It reunites Leigh with that overwhelmingly powerful female lead, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, whose name was made by her electrifying performance in Leigh's 1996 film Secrets and Lies, and might well get made all over again with her formidable appearance here, demonstrating the terrible connection between depression and anger.' Read the full review. Exiled director Mohammad Rasoulof's arresting tale of Iran's violence and paranoia, and officialdom's misogyny and theocracy, whose importance is beyond doubt. What we said: 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig begins as a downbeat political and domestic drama in the familiar style of Iranian cinema, and then progressively escalates to something extravagantly crazy and traumatised – like a pueblo shootout by Sergio Leone.' Read the full review. Taut media procedural revisits Munich Olympics in Tim Fehlbaum's tense thriller focusing on the 1972 terrorist massacre through a TV crew lens. What we said: 'It's a really smart, involving, unassumingly written picture with something of James L Brooks' Broadcast News and I couldn't help think that maybe this is the film that Steven Spielberg could have made rather than Munich, his rather ponderous, Forsythian thriller about the aftermath.' Read the full review. Mahdi Fleifel's tale of displacement and desperation as Palestinian refugees seek a better life makes for suspenseful, melancholic viewing. What we said: 'Mahmood Bakri's excellent performance shows Chatila to be smart, personable, manipulative and ruthless, always on the lookout for ways to get money for a fake passport.' Read the full review. Sarah Snook and Kodi Smit-McPhee lend their voice talents to Adam Elliott's ambitious animation, a charming, poignant tale of troubled twins that has a strong personal touch. What we said: 'There's an ingenuousness and innocence to Memoir of a Snail, a family-entertainment approachability that belies a strange intensity. There are some candid hints, through the obviously personal narrative touches, that in this film some very real adult pain and anger is being hidden in plain sight.' Read the full review. Enjoyable and valuable study of tragicomic Britain's inspired photographer, whose highly coloured 70s and 80s images revealed the white working class as never before. What we said: 'The film shows that part of his skill is just looking like an ordinary bloke, going around in the crowd with his wheeled walking frame (after recent illness), smiling benignly, endlessly taking pictures.' Read the full review. Inspired by a true story, this feelgood Indian film is about some Bollywood superfans making their own movies with a cheeky but admirable DIY ethos. What we said: 'There is terrific fun, charm and storytelling energy in Superboys of Malegaon, and it settles on an interesting theme: very rarely indeed does a new film-maker find success with a completely original work.' Read the full review. Tragic story of a fiercely pioneering photographer, a black South African whose work illuminated the reality of life under apartheid, but who lived a life of exile and homesickness. What we said: 'Raoul Peck's film, in which LaKeith Stanfield narrates a kind of heightened, fictionalised first-person account from Cole's own writings and diaries, is devastatingly sad. It is the sadness of an artist who becomes estranged, not merely from his homeland, but from his art and his livelihood.' Read the full review. Laura Carreira's impressive debut drama sees a quietly excellent Joana Santos endure dehumanising work conditions an online warehouse worker while looking for a way out. What we said: 'On Falling shows us a world of sadness and exhaustion, a kind of heavy cloud cover of depression that is both a symptom of the job and a way of getting through it: only by reducing yourself to zombie-like inattention to your own needs can you get through the day as a 'picker'.' Read the full review. Mumbai-set comic horror with Radhika Apte terrific as a woman preparing to settle down with a shiftless husband she barely knows when her world goes awry. What we said: 'With its deadpan drollery and rectilinear tableau scenes, Sister Midnight takes something from Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch and also – at its most alarming – something more from Polanski's Repulsion.' Read the full review. Geoffrey Rush's retired judge is terrorised by John Lithgow's therapy puppet-wielding fellow resident in this claustrophobic care-home thriller of elder-on-elder abuse. What we said: 'Film-maker James Ashcroft has created a scary and intimately upsetting psychological horror based on a story by New Zealand author Owen Marshall, a film whose coolly maintained claustrophobic mood and bravura performances make up for the slight narrative blurring towards the end.' Read the full review. Terrifically tense cop movie digs into sexism and caste prejudice in India, Sunita Rajwar and Shahana Goswami as a cynical veteran and a wide-eyed rookie who has inherited her late husband's job. What we said: 'Writer-director Sandhya Suri has made a tense, violent and politically savvy crime procedural set in India: a film about sexism, caste bigotry and Islamophobia that doubles as a study in the complex relationship between two female cops.' Read the full review. Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon go to ground in a survival bunker with their son, in Joshua Oppenheimer's end-of-the-world singalong drama. What we said: 'What Oppenheimer is doing here commands attention. He is facing something from which everyone, in art as in life, averts their gaze and the resulting film is far better than others notionally on the same subject.' Read the full review. Docufiction by a group of young film-makers on the spectrum examining how their creativity and sense of self is shaped by autism is funny and pregnant with ideas. What we said: 'The collective's members finally come together in an empty swimming pool, which becomes their own 'stimming pool', symbolising their collective innovation. It's an intriguing and atmospheric piece of work.' Read the full review. A collection of staggering TV clips and amazing audio of Lennon and Ono's life in 1970s NYC, Kevin Macdonald's immersive collage is a pop culture fever dream. What we said: 'It's a film that mixes small screen zeitgeist fragments and madeleine moments, a memory quilt of a certain time and place, juxtaposing Jerry Rubin and Allen Ginsberg with Richard Nixon and George Wallace, John and Yoko in concert with ads for Tupperware.' Read the full review. Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes star in Uberto Pasolini's raw and urgent Odyssey adaptation, as a traumatised Odysseus faces the shameful aftermath of war. What we said: 'An elementally violent movie about PTSD, survivor guilt, abandonment, Freudian dysfunction and ruined masculinity.' Read the full review. Mesmerically peculiar portrait of the band performing in the burning Italian sun in this outrageously indulgent yet vivid and beguiling music documentary. What we said: 'The music and the atmosphere are an irresistible fan-madeleine for those who can remember referring to them solemnly as 'the Floyd' (ahem).' Read the full review. Shocking violence is tempered by strange, silent sequences in Dea Kulumbegashvili's haunting abortion drama, which has echoes of The Piano Teacher. What we said: 'This is not the usual 'abortion' issue movie in which the reactionary anti-abortion authorities are straightforwardly criticised and the pregnant woman is awarded compassionate centre stage status.' Read the full review. A star player at an elite tennis school decides to stay silent when the head coach is suspended in Leonardo Van Dijl's absorbing movie. What we said: 'A tense, absorbing movie of silences and absences, of difficult terrain skirted around, of subjects avoided. It's a reminder that in key situations, to keep quiet is a stressful, strenuous and, crucially, public activity – and a survival instinct that many young people have to learn.' Read the full review. Warm documentary from Dutch film-maker Suzanne Raes following three siblings as they clear out their enormously grand childhood home in Oxfordshire, where among the happy memories are those of cruelty. What we said: 'Maybe it takes a non-British film-maker to appreciate such intense and unfashionable Englishness; not eccentric exactly, but wayward and romantic.' Read the full review. Released on his 99th birthday and presented in the context of his remarkable career, Attenborough's passionate case against the ruination of the seas is matched only by nature's grandeur in this visually stunning film. What we said: 'He shows us an amazing vista of diversity and life, an extraordinary undulating landscape, a giant second planet of whose existence humanity has long been unaware but now seems in danger of damaging or even destroying.' Read the full review. Nauseating yet gripping story of Nazi poster woman who entranced Hitler, directed Triumph of the Will – and spent the rest of her life alternately fearful and defiant. What we said: 'This documentary shows she revised her memoirs endlessly, unsure if or how to minimise her personal contact with the Nazis, especially the sinister, besotted Joseph Goebbels; her fear of war guilt was at loggerheads with her unrepentant impulse to proclaim her own prestige.' Read the full review. Beautiful film of an off-grid family shattered by bereavement who had to come to terms with not just the loss of a parent but a whole lifestyle. What we said: 'Norwegian film-maker Silje Evensmo Jacobsen tells a painful, complicated story, more complicated than even the film itself explicitly reveals.' Read the full review. Lily Collias is outstanding as 17-year-old Sam, who goes hiking with her dad and his best buddy in India Donaldson's intelligent and humane feature debut. What we said: 'Donaldson sets a low-key tone of banter and backtalk, in which Sam has to ride in the back of her Subaru, making herself carsick by checking her phone and annoying her dad by asking if she can drive; he finds it annoying because she is actually a better driver than he is.' Read the full review. Shot almost entirely inside a car, Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys play a splintering couple trying to save their terrified teenage daughter in a cracking thriller. What we said: 'A gripping, real-time suspense thriller with a twist of the macabre, a film about family guilt and the return of the repressed.' Read the full review. Tom Cruise signs off with wildly entertaining adventure in this eighth and last Mission: Impossible, as agent Ethan Hunt takes on the ultimate in AI evil. What we said: 'Final Reckoning is a new and ultimate challenge (actually the second half of the challenge from the previous film) which takes Cruise's buff and resourceful IMF leader Ethan Hunt on one last maverick, deniable mission to exasperate and yet overawe his stuffed-shirt superiors at Washington and Langley. And what might that be? To save the world of course, like all the other missions.' Read the full review. Weapons-grade zingers come thick and fast in Jesse Armstrong's post-Succession uber-wealth satire about four plutocrats on a weekend away in a lodge that goes awry when the planet descends into chaos. What we said: 'More than any comedy or even film I've seen recently, this is movie driven by the line-by-line need for fierce, nasty, funny punched-up stuff in the dialogue, and narrative arcs and character development aren't the point. But as with Succession, this does a really good job of persuading you that, yes, this is what our overlords are really like.' Read the full review.
Axios
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Tampa Theatre to host screening of Oscar-nominated "Nickel Boys," Q&A
The Tampa Theatre will host a special screening of "Nickel Boys" on March 22, followed by a discussion with filmmaker RaMell Ross, forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle and journalist Ben Montgomery. Why it matters: The film adapts Colson Whitehead's award-winning novel, a fictional portrayal of the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, where students suffered horrific abuse for over a century. "Nickel Boys" had a limited theatrical run last year and was nominated this month for Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Zoom in: The film tells the story of Elwood Curtis, a Black teenager from Jim Crow-era Tallahassee, and his friend Turner as they navigate Nickel, an abusive reform school in Florida. Flashback: The Tampa Bay Times series, " For Their Own Good," written by Montgomery and former Times reporter Waveney Ann Moore, inspired Whitehead's novel. For 109 years, Florida sent wayward boys from across the state to Dozier — and the series chronicled the men who survived the school and demanded acknowledgment, resolution and reparation. Dozier closed in 2011, and soon after, researchers from USF found the remains of children in unmarked graves at the school. The big picture: Attendees will have the chance to hear from the filmmaker, along with the reporter and researcher who helped uncover the real story. The Florida Institute for Forensic Anthropology and Applied Science (IFAAS) at USF partnered with Orion Pictures and Amazon MGM Studios for the special screening. The event is free, and seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
USA Today
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Where to watch the 2025 Oscars: TV channel, other streaming options
Where to watch the 2025 Oscars: TV channel, other streaming options Show Caption Hide Caption Watch: Look into Oscar-nominated film 'Nickel Boys' 'Nickel Boys' directed by RaMell Ross is nominated at the Oscars for best picture and best adapted screenplay. One of the most cinematic events of Hollywood's award show season is just a few hours away. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences are slated to present a number of awards, recognizing artistic and technical excellence across the film industry, to the makers and actors behind some of your favorite films from 2024 at 97th Academy Awards. Last month, the Academy unveiled its Oscar nominees which includes a broad range of films, from the nearly four-hour historical drama "The Brutalist" to the fantasy musical blockbuster "Wicked." The 2025 Oscars will be held at the at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday night. And comedian Conan O'Brien has been tapped to serve as this year's master of ceremonies. Details of the ceremony remain under wraps, but there's a good chance that event organizers will take a cue from the recent Grammy Awards, which tastefully and appropriately made heroic firefighters and fundraising a focus after wildfires wreaked havoc across Southern California last month. Rate your 'Film of the Year': Join our Movie Meter panel and make your voice heard! Here's how and where to watch the events of the big night, including how to catch the red carpet. Watch the Oscars with a Fubo FREE trial When and where are the Oscars? The 97th Academy Awards are Sunday, March 2 and will be broadcast live from 7-10 p.m. ET. The Oscars' venue is none other than the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, which has been the venue for the Academy Awards since 2001. It was previously known as the Kodak Theatre, located inside the Ovation Hollywood shopping center. The state-of-the-art theatre, designed with the Academy Awards broadcast in mind, has a seating capacity of 3,300. Before the Dolby Theater became the mainstay, the ceremony bounced between the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Shrine Civic Auditorium and Expo Center from 1990 until 2001. Oscars 2025: See the full list of nominees How to watch the Oscars on TV, other streaming options The 97th Academy Awards will air live Sunday, March 2 at 7 p.m. ET/4 PT, on ABC. You can also stream the awards ceremony live on the ABC app, Hulu, YouTubeTV, AT&T TV and FuboTV. Watch the Oscars with a Fubo FREE trial Where to watch Oscars red carpet The official red-carpet show, hosted by Julianne Hough and Jesse Palmer, starts at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 PT on ABC. E!'s "Live From the Red Carpet" special begins at 4 p.m. ET/1 PT. Watch the Oscars Red Carpet FREE on Fubo Contributing: Saman Shafiq and Marco della Cava, USA TODAY We occasionally recommend interesting products and services. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. USA TODAY Network newsrooms operate independently, and this doesn't influence our coverage.
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
RaMell Ross: You ‘Don't Need a Lot of Money to Make a Film That's Cinematic and Deserves to Be in Theaters'
RaMell Ross had strong words about the state of the independent film industry and what he's looking to post-'Nickel Boys' while on the Spirit Awards blue carpet, speaking to IndieWire Saturday, February 22. The documentary-turned-narrative director's 'Nickel Boys' (Amazon MGM Studios) is up for two Film Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Feature and Best Cinematography. DP Jomo Fray had already won that award as of writing for his first-person-perspective dive into a 1960s Florida boarding school where Black students are being abused. Colson Whitehead wrote the novel that inspired the Oscar Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay nominee. More from IndieWire 'The People's Joker' Filmmaker Vera Drew Believes Mainstream Queer Representation Has Gotten 'So Stale' Nicole Kidman's Husband on 'Expats,' Brian Tee, Shot the Most Intense Scene with Her First Speaking to IndieWire's Features Writer Alison Foreman at the Spirit Awards ahead of the night's ceremony, Ross was asked about the future of theatrical releases for boldly minded independent films like 'Nickel Boys.' 'It's strange because big budget doesn't necessarily imply theatrical release anymore,' he said. 'I don't think you need a lot of money to make a film that's cinematic and deserves to be in theaters, but people feel like there's a certain production quality that one needs. When unions come into play, the budgets are bloated. I don't have the answers.' When not making films like 'Nickel Boys' or the Oscar-nominated documentary 'Hale County This Morning, This Evening' (2018), Ross teaches filmmaking at Brown University, which he said has given him a knowing position as a mentor to younger directors and storytellers. And perhaps making him more savvy in terms of giving advice. 'The most important part of that mentoring process is trying to figure out what the student actually wants, not what they say they want, because what they say they want is what they rarely actually want,' Ross said. 'Do you want the status of being a filmmaker, or do you want to make great films? Do you want your script to explore these ideas, or do you want to use the script and these ideas to make a film so that you can make another film about these ideas? The depth of one's intention and the source of the drive to make one's work really weeds out how much money you need.' As for audiences, he said, they 'have no idea what they want. Cultures in general are led by people who make decisions that are more geared toward what they want to see than what the culture wants to see, and the culture follows. Because what culture wants is more of what it go. That … psychological state is never right for artists.' As for the future of filmmaking or what we should look forward to or be afraid of, Ross said, 'I think we should be afraid of things continuing as they are, and we should hope for new models and paradigms and more risk, and a more generous assessment of relationships between return and piece, piece of work. It would be nice if they could be slightly more divorced so that the work isn't being reduced to communicate, it's actually being made more complex, to mistify. That doesn't necessarily make money.' Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie The 55 Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
BAFTA's 11th Hour Oscar Surprises
A version of this story first appeared on The Ankler. BAFTA Adds Fresh Intrigue to the Oscar Race Oscar season was speaking with an English accent this weekend, with many of the race's top contenders making the trip to London for Sunday's BAFTA Awards. The fact that a slew of additional guild awards took place the night before didn't even slow major contenders' roll. During Saturday night's WGA Awards, held in both New York and Los Angeles, the top two screenplay prizes were handed out first specifically so that the recipients, Anora writer-director Sean Baker (for original screenplay) and Nickel Boys' auteur RaMell Ross and his co-writer Joslyn Barnes (for adapted screenplay) could catch their flights to London immediately change of location also made for a slight mood shift in the Oscar race, just a week after Anora's huge wins with the Critics Choice, Directors Guild and Producers Guild awards marked it as an Oscar frontrunner. The top BAFTA award for best film went to Conclave, which — with London-based producers Tessa Ross and Juliette Howell as well as star Ralph Fiennes — was the closest to a hometown favorite in the pundits expected Conclave to have an edge in London over the very American Anora, but a more interesting upset came in the directing category, where The Brutalist's Brady Corbet triumphed. Add to that Adrien Brody's win for best actor, a category he now seems to have sewn up, and victories for score and cinematography, and The Brutalist got a much-needed boost from BAFTA at exactly the right moment. Final Oscar ballots, after all, are due on Tuesday at 5 hours after its WGA win, Anora also lost at the BAFTAs to Jesse Eisenberg's screenplay for A Real Pain, which seemed to be fading in the Oscar screenplay race given its lack of a best picture nomination. But by beating out not just Anora but also The Brutalist and The Substance at the BAFTAs, A Real Pain is displaying some strength in screenplay (as well as supporting actor, of course, where Kieran Culkin has a pretty clear path after Golden Globe, Critics Choice and BAFTA wins). The BAFTAs seemed to be eager to spread the wealth among a range of winners. Might the Oscars be inclined to do the same? No Moore in London Anora may not have widened its lead over the competition, but it scored a major surprise victory of its own, with Mikey Madison winning best actress over presumed favorite Demi Moore. I still suspect the SAG Awards next weekend will be eager to crown Moore and her unbeatable comeback story, and that the Academy will follow suit. But Madison's victory suggests not only that she's competitive, but that best actress may be more in play than expected. I'm Still Here star Fernanda Torres wasn't nominated at BAFTA, but you'd better believe her campaign team is paying attention to last night's an awards race that had felt so very wide open until recently, I wouldn't call any of this earth-shattering. I had a hunch that Anora's string of victories last weekend might have been squeakers, given how many films have received industry accolades this season. It's still possible Anora could make Baker the first person since Walt Disney himself to win four Oscars in a single year — Baker shares the film's nomination for picture (with his wife, Samantha Quan, and Alex Coco) in addition to his solo noms for director, original screenplay, and editing. But I think some space has opened, just a bit, for a wider group of winners to take home a slightly tweaked version of the BAFTAs, where A Real Pain wins original screenplay, Corbet wins director, something like Wicked or Conclave wins in editing, and Moore wins best actress. Anora could lose all of those categories, but that still wouldn't make its best picture win feel any less likely. Last week it became the first film in the history of Critics Choice to win best picture and no other award. If it does the same at the Oscars, it will become the first to do so since Grand Hotel way back in 1932. Sing Along Few people understand better than Guillermo del Toro how surreal it can be when, after years of toiling away at your work in varying levels of obscurity, you suddenly find the awards season spotlight shining on you. It happened for del Toro in 2018, when his tenth feature film, The Shape of Water, won four Oscars, including best picture and best director. And now it's happening for Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, whose film Sing Sing is nominated for three Oscars, including for the screenplay Bentley and Kwedar wrote in collaboration with two of the story's real-life inspirations, Clarence Maclin (who also acts in the film) and John 'Divine G' Whitfield (portrayed onscreen by Colman Domingo, who's also nominated). 'You guys are on a roll,' del Toro said to Bentley and Kwedar at the beginning of a recent Zoom call (shared with Prestige Junkie by Sing Sing's awards team), which you can watch exclusively above. Fresh off their latest trip to Sundance, where the Bentley-directed Train Dreams became one of the festival's breakout hits and few sales (to Netflix), they can only describe it as, well, surreal. 'We feel like we've just been operating in our little sandbox for a few years now, and it's lovely that all of this is happening,' Bentley adds. Del Toro starts by asking about the division of labor within Bentley and Kwedar's long-running partnership, in which they develop films together and take turns directing. 'Usually whoever is going to end up directing the film originated the idea and it just kind of fit into their bones,' says Kwedar, who directed Sing Sing. 'And then the other identifies that in their friend that this is something they have to do.' Kwedar's journey with Sing Sing began nearly a decade ago, when he read about the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at New York's Sing Sing prison and sought out the program's director, Brent Buell. After meeting with Buell and some of the program's veterans, both Bentley and Kwedar left feeling that 'if we could just translate the feeling of this room into a film, we'd have something special,' Kwedar recalls. 'We thought it would be very easy to do that. And then it took eight and a half years.' Del Toro may have never made a movie quite like Sing Sing — his next project, a new take on Frankenstein, is due later this year — but you can sense his genuine admiration for what they accomplished. 'This movie took basically a decade to make and then put in a compression chamber of having to shoot it in 18 days,' he says in awe. 'I mean my fastest movie was Kronos, and I shot that in 41 days.' 'Holy shit, that sounds luxurious,' Bentley responds. Hear the full conversation in the video above, and thanks to del Toro, Bentley and Kwedar for letting us eavesdrop.
