Exclusive Clip To David Oyelowo’s Five Nights In Maine Posted by Wilson Morales
August 4, 2016
Blackfilm.com has been provided with an exclusive clip to FilmRise’s upcoming drama “Five Nights in Maine,” starring David Oyelowo, Two-time Oscar winner Dianne Wiest (“Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Bullets Over Broadway”) and Oscar-nominated actress Rosie Perez (“Fearless”). This film will hit theaters August 5.
The film, which also features Teyonah Parris, Hani Furstenberg, and Bill Raymond, will hit theaters in New York, Los Angeles and other cities in the late summer along with going day-and-date on digital and VOD platforms.
Written & directed by Maris Curran, the film made its world premiere at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.
The last voicemail Sherwin Owens (Oyelowo) received from his beloved wife, Fiona (Furstenberg), before she died in a car accident implored him: “meet her, before it’s too late.” The “her” in question is Fiona’s mother Lucinda (Wiest), whom Fiona had just visited after many years of estrangement. After spending several solitary days blunting his grief with alcohol, Sherwin makes the long drive to Lucinda’s home in rural Maine. Lucinda lives up to her reputation as ornery, bullying, and cruel, but she is dying from cancer. As Sherwin endeavours to bridge a divide widened by age and race, there ensues an unspoken competition as to who bears the greater loss.
During a recent screening in New York City, Oyelowo was on hand afterwards for a Q & A and discuss his involvement in the film as a co-producer and actor.
How did you get involved?
David Oyelowo: Maris presented me with a script at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012. It was after screening of Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, which I starred in. Ava, who directed Selma, was friends with Maris and she introduced us. Maris gave me the script. I didn’t know who she was. In many ways, Ava’s introduction is what made me read it. Ten pages in I just knew that this was something I had to engage in. It scared me because it was about grief and about bereavement. As a man who is happily married myself, I didn’t want to spend weeks on end entertaining the idea of what it’s like to lose your wife. That’s not a space I was looking to inhabit. I just felt the truth and authenticity on what’s on the page and that kept drawing me to it. We began some dialogue and then I realized that it has a cinematic voice that I wanted you to know. I became determined that this film should be made and that’s how I came onboard as a producer.
How do you process loss and resentment beyond the words?
DO: Sometimes, like Selma for instance, or other films where I played true life characters, you have the opportunity to step in the shoes of someone who lived and what their experience was. One of the reasons I took pause for a moment with this film is I realized early on that I was going to have investigate myself as a human being and go to places within that I wasn’t in a hurry to go to. Grief and Bereavement treats us all very differently and we all have different reactions to it. I’ve suffered loss in my life but nowhere near what Sherwin goes through in this film with someone close to him. So, my process was to be a version of myself, combined with the writing and the attributes of Sherwin. Unlike me, he’s an African American man who is living in Atlanta, but there was a lot of overlap. What would it be like for David under these circumstances? In many ways, when I watched this film, it’s one of the most exposing films for me as a man, as David. So my process was to be as naked as I could for the camera as it rolled.
Exclusive Clip
