EXCLUSIVE: BAFTA nominees Clarence Maclin and John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield will not be attending Sunday’s film awards ceremony after their applications for entry visas to the UK were denied.
Deadline has learned that the pair, who are both nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Sing Sing, while Maclin is up for Supporting Actor as well, made multiple appeals to the UK Home Office but were unsuccessful in having the decisions reversed.
The visa refusals, we are told, were based on Maclin and Whitfiel’s criminal records in the U.S.
Maclin, who plays himself in Sing Sing, served more than 17 years at the eponymous maximum-security facility on a robbery conviction. He was released in 2012. Whitfield, who is portrayed in the film by Leading Actor BAFTA nominee Colman Domingo and turns up in a cameo, was incarcerated for almost 25 years at the prison and also released in 2012. Whitfield maintains he was wrongfully jailed.
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The film documents their lives while imprisoned at Sing Sing, finding purpose by acting in a theater group alongside other incarcerated men.
Maclin and Whitfield applied for visitor visas in order to attend the BAFTAs this weekend, but we’re told the Home Office denied the requests, referring to the grounds for refusal in the immigration rules relating to lengthy criminal convictions, and declined to exercise their discretion to approve the application.
The immigration rules state: “Where a person has been convicted of a criminal offence in the UK or overseas for which they have received a custodial sentence of at least 12 months or more you must refuse their application.”
Maclin and Whitfield will both be attending the Oscars next month, where they’re also nominated for Adapted Screenplay alongside co-writers (and director) Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley.
The post ‘Sing Sing’ BAFTA Nominees Clarence Maclin & John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield Denied UK Visas To Attend Ceremony appeared first on Deadline.
