New Podcast: Interview with Clemency filmmaker Chinonye Chukwu

In the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC, writer/​director Chinonye Chukwu (pic­tured) speaks with DPIC Senior Director of Research and Special Projects Ngozi Ndulue about her award-win­ning new film Clemency. Chukwu dis­cuss­es her inspi­ra­tion for the sto­ry, the years-long process of research and immer­sion that helped her shape the nar­ra­tive, and her hopes for how this film will be received.

Clemency stars Alfre Woodard as death-row prison war­den Bernadine Williams and Aldis Hodge as death-row pris­on­er Anthony Woods. The film focus­es on Bernadine, Chukwu explains, and ​“nav­i­gates her emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal down spi­ral as she pre­pares to exe­cute … Woods.” Clemency won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Drama at the Sundance Film Festival in February 2019, the first time the award has been giv­en to a movie direct­ed by an African-American woman.

Chukwu said she was inspired to make a film about the death penal­ty — and to approach it from the per­spec­tive of a war­den — after the 2011 exe­cu­tion of Troy Davis in Georgia. She recalls a let­ter from sev­er­al retired war­dens and cor­rec­tions offi­cials: ​“They all band­ed togeth­er and wrote a let­ter to the gov­er­nor plead­ing for clemen­cy for Troy, and they spoke to not just his poten­tial inno­cence, but the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal con­se­quences they knew from first­hand expe­ri­ence that killing Troy would have on those who were sanc­tioned to do so.” That let­ter, Chukwu says, prompt­ed her to ask, ​“What must it be like for peo­ple whose liveli­hoods are based on the tak­ing of human life?”

Chukwu spent sev­er­al years in ​“deep immer­sion” study­ing the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in par­tic­u­lar. She spoke with lawyers, war­dens, cor­rec­tions direc­tors, incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple and their fam­i­lies. ​“There are so many peo­ple who are impli­cat­ed in the sys­tem, who are affect­ed by the sys­tem. I real­ly want­ed to explore how they’re all inter­con­nect­ed through this sys­temic prac­tice,” she explained.

Chukwu said she believed that her approach of human­iz­ing all of those involved in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem helped her gain the trust of peo­ple from var­ied back­grounds: ​“Because I’ve been keep­ing it so focused on me want­i­ng to explore the human­i­ties involved, as opposed to me mak­ing a film that is hit­ting peo­ple over the head with a par­tic­u­lar mes­sage, I think a lot more peo­ple have been open to talk­ing with me and shar­ing with me.” She said that the details of the exe­cu­tion pro­to­col were the most dif­fi­cult to learn. ​“It’s so secre­tive,” she said. ​“I had to piece bits of infor­ma­tion from dif­fer­ent peo­ple togeth­er.” People who had par­tic­i­pat­ed in exe­cu­tions were hes­i­tant to have a detailed dis­cus­sion of the process, she said, explain­ing, ​“part of it was because of their own PTSD from it.”

The film­mak­er said she hopes her movie reach­es a wide audi­ence. ​“I hope peo­ple who have nev­er real­ly thought twice about the prison sys­tem watch it. I hope peo­ple who think they’re for the death penal­ty watch it. I hope peo­ple who have worked in the sys­tem watch it. I hope peo­ple who just want a damn good sto­ry watch it. I think that this film real­ly does attract a lot of audi­ences. It’s for peo­ple who have nev­er real­ly thought about the human­i­ties that exist behind prison walls.”

Chukwu said that the ​“jour­ney” of cre­at­ing Clemency had an enor­mous impact on her own life. ​“It’s com­plete­ly trans­formed me. I became an activist because of this jour­ney.… It real­ly changed my phi­los­o­phy to not defin­ing peo­ple by their worst acts.” She hopes her film will prompt oth­ers to ask big ques­tions about crim­i­nal jus­tice: ​“I hope this film can real­ly chal­lenge peo­ple to human­ize those who are incar­cer­at­ed.… We are also incar­cer­at­ed, in some way, on some sort of emo­tion­al and men­tal lev­el as we con­tin­ue to per­pet­u­ate what goes on between prison walls. Those are the larg­er kind of con­ver­sa­tions I hope it real­ly insti­gates.” Ultimately, the film empha­sizes the human­i­ty of every­one touched by the death penal­ty. ​“A foun­da­tion of jus­tice and mer­cy is real­ly seen in treat­ing peo­ple as human beings,” Chukwu said.