Sing Sing, the new docudrama directed by Greg Kwedar, leads with the art. Ahead of depicting any other part of the characters’ lives, the film shows them on stage. Sing Sing is about the Rehabilitation Through the Arts initiative that is run at the prison of the film’s title, a real program that has received attention from documentarians and news reporters over the years. Kwedar makes drama from the dramaturgical efforts of these incarcerated individuals, and his clear instinct is to honor their creativity above all else. Every one of them has lived a complicated story, but that’s no reason to define them by their transgressions. They are deserving of respect.

That thesis of insistent humanity distinguishes Sing Sing, and it’s embodied in the lead performance by Colman Domingo. He plays John “Divine G” Whitfield, a man who doesn’t deny the troubles in his past but who was also convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Proof of his innocence has been met with cold indifference by a system that cast its judgment against him a long time earlier. Domingo wisely doesn’t play the role with the sort of hollow nobility that might have prevailed in such a film a generation or two earlier. John is something of a start within the troupe, often snagging main parts and even writing original plays that get produced, and Domingo shows the ego and pride that come with that elevated stature, which in turn strengthens the scenes when his sense of self is battered by circumstances.

One of the circumstances that tries John is the emergence of rival for acclaim and control within the group. This newcomer is played by Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, one of many alumni of Rehabilitation Through the Arts who play a version of themselves in the film. Maclin is sensational in the film, sliding carefully between the character’s defense-mechanism thug persona and his developing sense that he can be more layered and caring than society is systemically inclined to let him be.

Kweder wrote the script for the film with Clint Bentley, one of his regular collaborators. The intricacy of the character construction accentuates the callous indifference of the system to those behind bars. Whatever terrible acts they might have engaged in to reach this place, they are still human beings who are, in the plainest assessment, meant to be on a path to rehabilitation. Without resorting to melodrama or manipulation, Kweder crafts Sing Sing as a rueful acknowledgement of how difficult it is for the men it depicts to overcome the humiliations heaped upon them by prison guards, bored parole board members, and other officials. As their souls are stripped away, it is up to the aspiring artists to rebuild their being better. Sing Sing respects the dignity of their perseverance. There’s a grace to it.