When Nova Scotia filmmaker Ben Proudfoot got a call a few years ago from his one-time executive producer Stephen Curry, he didn’t expect the NBA superstar to pitch him a co-directing gig.
“He said he had an idea for a movie that he wanted to direct with me. I was like, ‘OK?’” laughs Proudfoot.
“And then he told me about Clarence Jones.”
Jones — a lawyer, political strategist and draft speech writer for King — is the subject of “The Baddest Speechwriter of All,” a 29-minute documentary co-directed by Proudfoot and Curry that premieres at Sundance on Friday.
At 95, Jones is one of the last living figures from King’s inner circle, and the film offers a rare, intimate account of the civil rights movement from someone who helped shape some of its most iconic words.
“Stephen’s a first-time filmmaker and I’ve made hundreds of short documentaries. And he also happens to be, you know, one of the greatest basketball players ever,” chuckles Proudfoot, a two-time Oscar winner.
They first connected over Proudfoot’s “The Queen of Basketball,” which won the Academy Award for best documentary short in 2021 and was executive produced by Curry.
“He had a very clear idea of what stories of Clarence’s he wanted to explore.”
The Golden State Warriors star met Jones years earlier in San Francisco, where the two struck up a friendship that evolved into a mentorship. What drew Curry in, Proudfoot says, was Jones’s philosophy of choosing purpose over comfort — a theme that became central to the film.
“There’s this incredible moment in Clarence’s life where he leaves a lucrative job as a Hollywood lawyer to go work with Martin Luther King Jr. and his whole team in Alabama,” Proudfoot says.
“That’s kind of what the movie is about — the choice to live with purpose versus living comfortably and to challenge yourself to go do something that’s worthwhile. I think that’s something that really struck a chord with Stephen, and strikes a chord with me too.”
The film is structured around an extended conversation between Curry and Jones, shot at San Francisco’s Mechanics’ Institute Library. Using an Interrotron — a teleprompter-like device that reflects Curry’s face into the camera lens — Jones speaks directly to the audience while actually making eye contact with Curry.
Though it was Curry’s first time directing, Proudfoot says the four-time NBA champion quickly found his footing behind the camera.
“He’s extremely observant and very focused,” Proudfoot says. “I was explaining how I approach interviews, and I could tell that in addition to listening to me, he was also watching my hands, my movements. I realized there actually are a lot of gestural and physical things I do as a director in an interview that he helped me discover.”
Curry’s perspective also helped unlock one of the film’s most distinctive stylistic choices: hand-painted animation used to recreate Jones’s memories.
“There’s one moment in the film when Martin Luther King Jr. is delivering the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and Clarence gives very specific details that are little known about that exact moment,” Proudfoot says.
Jones describes King scratching his leg with his other foot before delivering the speech’s iconic refrain.
“Stephen (envisioned) a way to move the camera around, almost like how a basketball game might be shot, where the perspective is freewheeling. That’s what initially inspired the idea of animating a lot of these memories.”
The animation — created by Brazilian artist Daniel Bruson and composed of roughly 3,000 individual watercolour paintings — allows the film to move freely through history, offering what Proudfoot describes as “instant replays” of pivotal moments.
One of the film’s most emotional scenes comes when Curry gently presses Jones to talk about his mother’s death — a moment Proudfoot says only surfaced because of the trust between them.
“Sometimes when people tell their life story, they gloss over the painful part,” Proudfoot says.
“I remember Stephen coming back to that and asking him what it was like that day, what happened, really sort of going into that particular moment.”
Proudfoot says the memory that emerged from the exchange became the “emotional climax” of the film.
“There was something about their existing friendship, relationship and mutual trust and respect that allowed for that to happen. The cameras disappeared, all the crew disappeared and it was just Stephen and Clarence having this conversation.”
Proudfoot believes Jones’s story is especially relevant now, at a time when progress feels stalled and systemic change out of reach.
“It’s easy to fall into passivity and say, ‘There’s nothing I can do about it,’” he says.
“This movie is about the opposite — only you can solve some of these problems. I think Clarence’s story is a call to anyone who feels that burning purpose within them to take up the torch and go do it.”
Proudfoot’s focus is now on Sundance — and possibly attending the film’s premiere with Curry, who happens to be playing a game in nearby Salt Lake City during the festival
“It’s truly fateful,” he says.
“If he doesn’t attend, I’ll see him at the game, but it might work out.”
“The Baddest Speechwriter of All” has several in-person screenings at Sundance starting Friday, and online screenings between Jan. 29 and Feb. 2.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 22, 2026.
