Clemency

Snubbed: Alfre Woodard 

Dir. Chinonye Chukwu. 2019, U.S. 113 mins. DCP. With Alfre Woodard, Aldis Hodge, Richard Schiff, Wendell Pierce, Richard Gunn, Danielle Brooks. Years of carrying out death row executions have taken a toll on prison warden Bernadine Williams (Woodard). As she prepares to execute another inmate, Bernadine must confront the psychological and emotional demons her job creates, ultimately connecting her to the man (Hodge) she is sanctioned to kill. Chukwu’s breakthrough film won the Jury Prize for Best U.S. Dramatic Feature at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, guided by shattering, career-topping work by Woodard, who was astonishingly ignored by the Academy. Her performance surfaces, with miraculous realism and complexity, the guilt, the fatigue, the care, and the constant moral wrestling of a life lived in the shadows of capital punishment. 

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