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“The Story Is Like a Lot of My Peers, Friends and Family”: Director Rashad Frett On His Sundance Competition Drama, Ricky

A Black man is being consoled or congratulated by friends around him.Image from Ricky. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Rashad Frett arrives at Sundance with his debut feature, Ricky, following work as a combat medic, a stint in business school, and directing an independent TV pilot he called “a Connecticut version of The Wire.” Along the way, he heard the stories of peers who cycled in and out of the criminal justice system system. So, when enrolled at NYU Tisch Graduate Film School, he used those stories as inspiration for his thesis short, Ricky. “We had ex-offenders, police officers, parole officers, judges and family members of the incarcerated all involved and consulting on the script,” Frett told Filmmaker when we selected him for our 2023 New Faces list, after Ricky played Sundance and while Frett was shopping an expanded feature version to producers and financiers.

Just 18 months later, the feature version received its world premiere this week at Sundance in the Dramatic Competition. The central story remains the same. As in the short, we meet Ricky shortly after his release from prison and watch him struggle to balance his job with the demands of his parole as well as the dearth of meaningful support for the formerly incarcerated. And similarly to the earlier work, Frett keeps his focus tight on Ricky, played now by Stephan James, while expanding the world around him and developing various supporting characters, who include Sheryl Lee Ralph as his stern parole officer. At feature length, Frett’s depiction of Ricky’s mental turmoil is even more powerful, finding its realization in James’s powerful performance, a master class in conveying internal tension. Below, Frett discusses adapting his short to this powerful new feature, how he raised the funding for the film, and what he hopes audiences take away from it.

Filmmaker: How did Ricky the short became Ricky the feature?

Frett: The short was derived from my thesis for grad school at NYU. I was initially just going to graduate with a feature script for another film, and my co-writer, Lin Que Ayoung, who was also my classmate, convinced me to consider making another feature film [script]. We spent all this money to go to this amazing film school, why not put out as much work out as possible? I like to pull inspiration from things around me, whether it’s from my personal life or just people I’ve known or things that I’ve seen, so the story [of Ricky] is literally like a lot of my peers, friends and family I knew who struggled after being through the criminal justice system. I had also worked making a documentary with children of incarcerated parents.

We had a delay in making the short [version of Ricky] because of the pandemic, and during that time we [worked on] the script more and more. Cary Fukunaga came on board during this waiting period and gave great notes for the short. When, a year and a half later, we shot the short, Cary posted me on his Instagram, and the next thing you know, a lot of people were hitting me up. His agent [WME’s Craig Kestel] contacted me through that that kind gesture. When we finished doing the edit, I sent him a cut, and he signed me immediately. During that entire time while we were in post-production for the short, me and Lin Que were talking about the feature.

One of my professors at NYU, Nicole Cassell, was one the first people who [thought the short] could be a feature, and I really wanted to develop this character and the world he came from. In the process, we met [Founding Director of Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program] Michelle Satter, and she invited us to apply to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab with the script. [At this point] we had an outline and an almost finished draft, but getting that invite was the universe telling us this film needs to be made. So, we buckled down and finished a draft and submitted [and got in]. And then we got into the Sundance Film Festival for the short and got invited to apply for the Directors Lab and got into that one too.

Filmmaker: How did the Labs help the film?

Frett: We got great notes in the Screenwriters Lab, and, especially in the Directors Lab. Workshopping a scene there made me go back to the script with Lin Que and develop some of the characters more. For example, the film initially opened with Ricky getting fired from a job by a random boss. During the process of the Director’s Lab, we developed Terrence [Sean Nelson], his boss, into a character who is also his childhood friend, and you find out later in the story that they have a deeper history. So, after the Directors Lab we went deeper into the story to find out why Ricky unfortunately ended up in prison for so many years.

Filmmaker: How did you put together financing for the film?

Frett: [WME] was incredible and introduced me to potential investors. I met one specific investor who really resonated with the script on a personal level because a family member of his is still going through that process.

Filmmaker: What was that process going out to investors and production companies like for you? Were people down with the story and the way you wanted to approach the film?

Frett: There were some things I had to change that I wasn’t agreeing with at first, specifically casting. I wanted to keep the Ricky [actor, Parish Bradley] from the short, but I took time to look at the bigger picture. And he’s still in the feature as well.

Filmmaker: What sort of issues did you have to talk through with the investors other than casting?

Frett: I like to be fully transparent ,and I like for, the investors to be fully transparent. The [investors I met] loved the short and were waiting for a version of the script they could read to figure out where it was going and if they could be a part of it or not. Some of them kind of stayed away from it because they felt it was too dark. I got a lot of that. I met with some amazing studios who loved the premise of the short turning into a feature, and [who said that] in the future, when I’m ready to work on a bigger budget — like $10 million plus — we could revisit conversations. I got a good amount of no’s, but I never gave up. All you need is one yes.

Filmmaker: Was there one main person who was responsible for the movie being financed?

Frett: Josh Peters, who’s with Spark Features, is incredible. One of my fellows at the Lab, Sean Wang, who did Didi, was working with him. Sean loved our script and mentioned us to Josh, and that’s how we got connected. And I was introduced to [producer] Stilo [Sterling] Brim by William Morris.

Filmmaker: What the most challenging aspect for you in terms of transitioning from the short to the feature? I was struck that you carried a lot over in terms of the rhythm and the feel of the film. It didn’t feel like you were suddenly stepping into some fake bigger world, which I appreciated.

Frett: I think one of the biggest struggles had was just on a production level. We were on a 20-day shoot, and I wanted 25. We had a lot of stunts, and the way I direct, I really like to take my time. But, of course, with bigger budgets, it’s more politics as opposed to the short, and that was challenging for me to adjust to. I had to roll with the punches. With features, a lot more things change on the fly as opposed to shorts. There were times when I had to pivot, to rewrite a scene on the spot, or switch around days.

Filmmaker: I loved how internal, how coiled, Stephan James’s performance is. There are a lot of ways actors can express anger or frustration, and sometimes they are quite cliched, like punching a wall or something. But you can feel his tension even as he’s not being showy about it.

Frett: I clicked with Stephan immediately. I was a big fan of his work — If Beale Street Could Talk, 21 Bridges. We both connected with the story of Ricky —we both had people in our lives with have been through the criminal justice system. He’s also of Caribbean descent like myself, so we connected on that level as well. The nuances that he brought, he really made Ricky and brought [the character] to the next level.

Filmmaker: In terms of the film’s message and its story of recidivism and the social factors that can cause it, what are you hoping to leave audiences with?

Frett: My hope is that this film [makes] the audience think about having empathy for someone who did their time, made a mistake, but wants to positively reintegrate back into society. I lost a lot of my peers to recidivism. They truly tried to reacclimate positively back into society, but then the stigma they had over having a record [made them] feel cornered, and they unfortunately resorted back to their old ways, which landed them back in prison. Or, they were deported, which I touch on briefly [in the film]. My hope is for the audience to think about having some empathy and for [the film] to start conversations about better programs for ex-offenders prior to them coming out.

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