Fort Worth native Greg Kwedar’s film ‘Sing Sing’ is nominated for 3 Oscars. He’s just getting started

Greg Kwedar is proud of being from Fort Worth.

The filmmaker was born and raised in Cowtown, graduating from Trinity Valley School in 2003. After high school, Kwedar pursued an accounting degree at Texas A&M, but abandoned his studies to go into filmmaking.

By 2008, Kwedar had moved to Austin, and over the next several years worked on a number of short films. In 2016, his feature directorial debut “Transpecos” released and won the narrative feature prize at the SXSW Film Festival.

Kwedar’s latest film “Sing Sing,” is nominated for three Oscars at the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 2. Kwedar himself is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, with the film also picking up nods for Best Original Song (for “Like a Bird,” co-written by Fort Worth musician Abraham Alexander), and Best Actor in a Leading Role (for Colman Domingo).

“Sing Sing” follows Divine G (Domingo), who is imprisoned at Sing Sing Correctional Facility for a crime he didn’t commit, as he finds purpose by acting in a theatre group alongside other incarcerated men.

The film made its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and has played in dozens of festivals since, including at Fort Worth’s Lone Star Film Festival. The movie is now available to rent or buy online.

Ahead of the ceremony, Kwedar spoke to the Star-Telegram about his Fort Worth ties, making “Sing Sing” and what’s next for the filmmaker.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Star-Telegram: Greg, thanks for the time. You’re a busy guy, I wanted to start there. You were at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah last month and then you were recently in London for the BAFTA Awards. How are you doing?

Greg Kwedar: It’s true [laughs]. I just got in from London last night and I leave for Los Angeles tomorrow morning. My 2-year-old daughter tells everyone that I live up in the air, which is very cute, but also kind of tragic and heartbreaking [laughs]. I mean, honestly, I’m at this point now where it’s just totally disorienting. I have no sense of time or where I am, what day it is. It’s kind of that mode. But I do know there’s only a couple weeks left of this campaign.

S-T: Just a little bit more and then the campaign starts for “Train Dreams.” [Editor’s note: Kwedar co-wrote and executive produced, but did not direct “Train Dreams.” The film has been acquired by Netflix.]

GK: It’s true [laughs]. It started to dawn on us that we might be doing this again. It very much looks like we’ll be doing this again next year for [”Sing Sing” co-writer and producer] Clint Bentley’s movie “Train Dreams.” We’re really proud of that project, and he directed a stunning film. It’s based on an incredible book. So yeah, I’ll start taking my vitamins much earlier this time [laughs].

S-T: It’s funny, I recently met James Faust over at the Dallas International Film Festival and asked if “Train Dreams” would screen there, like “Sing Sing” did last year. He said they’re working on it.

GK: Yeah, that’s awesome. I mean, we’re still in the process of sitting down with the Netflix team and really kind of building out what their vision is for the release. I mean, they have very high hopes for it. They really love the movie, and that’s really all you can ask for. Yeah, we’ll roll up our sleeves and figure out how to bring this movie to the world.

S-T: I first saw “Sing Sing” at the Lone Star Film Festival last November. I had heard good buzz and was even more intrigued to find out it was made by someone with Fort Worth ties. I know you’re based in Austin now, but were you born and raised in Fort Worth?

GK: I was. Born and raised in Fort Worth, grew up really close to TCU. I went to Trinity Valley School from kindergarten through 12. Really proud to be from Fort Worth, Texas. A lot of my family still lives there. My parents still live there. My sister still lives there with her family. It still feels like home to me and I think there’s something to the spirit of that town that I think served me in those early years, that helped forward me as a filmmaker. It has this kind of really independent spirit. If Fort Worth is indie film, then maybe is Dallas the studio town or Hollywood?

The films that Clint and I make are really about community. Both the community that we’re working within to tell a story, but also the community of artists we make films with. I’ve just always felt welcome in Fort Worth and I think there’s really something very singular about that. How the city really prides itself on really taking care of their own and really welcoming guests into the community as well.

S-T: Filmmaking has only gotten bigger in Fort Worth in what I would call the “Taylor Sheridan effect,” from his various shows filming here. For you growing up here, was there much of a fimmaking scene?

GK: My real film awakening was late in college, when I was at Texas A&M. I traveled abroad to Sydney, Australia, and really plugged into the film scene there, quite unexpectedly. That really changed the course of my life. But if you look back, you see where all the seeds were planted. I had a high school English teacher, Mrs. Smith, who read a essay of mine and pulled me aside and said I had a voice and that I should keep writing. It was something I pushed down and really forgot about for several years. But when I was starting to listen again to that inner voice, she was there.

Then I also had a dear friend in Fort Worth, one of my closest friends growing up, named Andrew Disney, who’s also a filmmaker. We went to high school together and I just remember always carrying around his gear as he was making his videos. He had this incredible imagination and so talented. I never thought it was something that I could do, but I just wanted to be a part helping him achieve his visions. Certainly, when it came time for me to sort of follow this course, that was also there as well. But I wasn’t ever really part of the actual film scene in Fort Worth when I was growing up. I was more concerned with playing sports and student council and all the other things that kids do at that time.

S-T: I think it worked out.

GK: It did. I think part of being a storyteller and an artist is the collection of experiences that you can draw from and pull into your story. I encourage young people pursuing film to have as diverse a life as they’re able to pursue. Sometimes you’re just kind of born into a really unexpected story, and sometimes you have to chase it and be a part of it.

S-T: At that Lone Star Film Festival screening last year, you mentioned that you had screened “Sing Sing” over 100 times at that point. Is that still accurate? Is it more now?

GK: Who knows [laughs]. Honestly, I don’t know how many times we’ve screened it, but I’m sure we’re beyond that number by now. We’ve screened it in so many different contexts. We screened it in film festivals all over the world, now theatrically as well. Then we would have these special screenings that we also did inside prisons. Both at Sing Sing where the movie is based. Our New York premiere was inside Sing Sing. Then we were part of the first ever film festival inside of a max-security prison at San Quentin [Rehabilitation Center].

Now the film is available in over 1,000 prisons to over a million incarcerated people for free on their tablets. We were the first film to be re-released in theaters and then simultaneously available in prisons in history. I’m really proud of that, because something as a team that we were really focused on was, how can we make this accessible to people inside and outside the walls? We didn’t want to neglect arguably the most important audience for this film, which was incarcerated people. In the first weekend of its re-release, over 150,000 incarcerated people saw the film and we got over 20,000 written responses.

S-T: How did that come together?

GK: That initiative was really spearheaded by our home distributor in the U.S., A24, and one of our lead cast, who was formerly incarcerated and an activist now — Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez. He is very plugged into the world of change-makers in the incarceration realm. He had friends at an organization called Edovo, which provides educational content to incarcerated people. We struck up a partnership with them and through their technology, we’re able to deploy the film to all these prisons all over the country.

S-T: Fascinating that you can make that happen. The film is based on this group gearing up to perform a real musical they did in 2005 called “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code.” I understand that the original cast reunited just a few weeks ago to perform it again. You were there for that. How was it?

GK: It was always a dream that we had to see “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code” live on stage again. Because the last time that play was performed live was when it was originally performed inside Sing Sing in 2005, so 20 years ago. The same cast that was in that play 20 years ago on the stage, then the next time the play was performed was in front of our movie cameras, but just sort of select moments in 2022.

Then in 2025 we got to do it on stage at the New York Theatre Workshop, one of the most famed off Broadway institutions. It’s where “Rent” first started, and the cast came back on stage and just brought the house down. I mean, literally my face hurt from smiling so much. Took a couple days to recover [laughs]. It was one of those true unbridled moments of joy. That’s best way to put it. The love exchange from the audience to what the men were offering was also really palpable. It felt like we were able to slip into and live inside the movie for the first time.

S-T: That’s one of my favorite things about the movie, is you see the guys getting ready for the musical but you don’t actually show the performance. It’s only after the movie is over that a video of the 2005 production is played over the credits. Was that always the intent?

GK: Yeah, I guess our instinct as we were working in the script, and I remember this conversation with my creative partner, Clint Bentley, who’s based out of Dallas and we’ve been working together for over 15 years. We were having this conversation about as you are progressing through the script, you get to the point of like, “Okay, do we show opening night and the play?”

It just felt like that’s not where the life was inside of this movie. If it’s a movie about process, and as they would say, trusting the process and finding the meaning in the process, then the result of that work is less relevant to the focus of what the movie is. We decided to allow for the drama to exist in the work and the meaning. Then when you get to what would have been the opening night to just come back to where our true focus was, which is on the people, and this friendship between these two characters.

S-T: It’s a strong choice. And then I think the movie gets even stronger by ending with the song “Like a Bird” from Abraham Alexander and Adrian Quesada. Abraham is a Fort Worth guy as well, so it was nice to see him on the project. How did that happen?

GK: Our circles had never crossed until this point. My first meeting was with Adrian Quesada, here in Austin. A mutual friend of ours put us together, because I was a huge fan of the band Black Pumas. We had had a vision of how could we work together on this movie, whether it was working from a song in their library. As we sat down to meet, we both became immediately thrilled and inspired by the challenge of doing an original song. Something that could really exist and carry us from the end of the movie into the credits, but distill an entire movie into a feeling. Something that you almost can’t put to words. In that lunch meeting in Austin, [Adrian] was like, “I can hear this artist, Abraham Alexander, in my head as we’re talking about this. You should check out some of his music, but I think he could be perfect to partner up and make the song.”

I went back, I think probably even in the car driving away from lunch, I started playing his music from his EP and heard his song “Heart of Gold” and it just felt like the soul of our film was existing in the soul of his artistry. It was just 100% “yes” from me right out the gate. Then the two of them, they got involved as we were putting the finishing touches on the movie. We were dropping in the final score that we had just recorded with the London Contemporary Orchestra and then they were literally the last component to add in before we did the final mix and printed the movie.

S-T: It’s a great choice and I’m actually talking to Abraham soon about it.

GK: Speaking of joy, like that is someone who embodies that quality. He’s an incredibly deep person. He’s a poet, but he brings so much light to his music. We became very fast friends. Honestly, when I first heard their song, and even though it seemed like crazy talk, I was like, “I think this can be nominated for an Oscar.” I believed it really from the first moment I heard the song. Everyone else was like, “Well, one step at a time, Greg.” Now that it’s actually come true, I’m just like, wow, speechless. I’m so proud of them.

S-T: It feels like everyone from Fort Worth has rallied behind you and Abraham. I remember when the Oscar nominations came out, you got a shoutout from Mayor Mattie Parker. What’s it like having this level of support from your hometown?

GK: No shade to Austin, but I’m getting a lot more love from my hometown, than where I’ve lived since 2008 [laughs]. As I said at the beginning, I wouldn’t be the artist I am or the person I am had I not grown up in Fort Worth, Texas. To be able to help bring more attention to this great city and to add another feather in its cap, it’s a privilege.

S-T: Last question for you Greg, what are you most looking forward to on Oscar night?

GK: I’m trying not to try and visualize it too much, because I want to actually just be present for it. I grew up watching the Oscars as a kid. I’m gonna go with my wife, who I actually met at Trinity Valley Middle School, and who has sacrificed a lot to enable this campaign to happen and for me to be able to make movies. To get to go and celebrate that together with some of my family there at our side and just to hug on my “Sing Sing” team that’s going to be there.

Because the bittersweet element of this is, we’ve been working on this now for over nine years and it will be kind of the closing of this chapter. I have a lot of feelings around that, because I love the people we made this movie with so much. I know we will be bonded for life, but it’s that kind of moment of uncertainty, where you saying goodbye to something and hello to something new. It’s going to be a good time. I look forward to Conan’s [O’Brien] jokes on stage. I don’t think I’m famous enough to get personally called out, so I feel safe [laughs].

The 97th Academy Awards air Sunday, March 2, at 6 p.m. CST on ABC.

This story was originally published February 28, 2025 at 12:00 PM.

Brayden Garcia

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Brayden Garcia is a service journalism reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He is part of a team of local journalists who answer reader questions and write about life in North Texas. Brayden mainly writes about weather and all things Taylor Sheridan-related.