Sean Hanish, writer and director of 'Return to Zero'.
Although most people think it does not happen that often, stillbirth or the loss of an unborn child inside the uterus during the latter part of pregnancy or later is actually quite common. In the US alone, approximately 26,000 or about one out of 160 unborn babies die every year.
The rate is even higher in developing countries where immediate and adequate medical care is hard to come by.
A death in the family, let alone the loss of a child, is never easy to take. The impact of stillbirth is particularly devastating—especially to the mothers who often suffer in silence believing that their grief and trauma is theirs to bear alone.
Hollywood filmmaker and screenwriter Sean Hanish lost a son from stillbirth in 2005. The difficulty that he and his wife suffered in dealing with the loss is something he would later chronicle in his latest feature film for Lifetime, “Return to Zero”.
“I really thought that me and my wife were one in a million, that this happened to nobody else. And that it was an absolute freak of nature. We would later discover that it actually happens more often than people think. As a creative artist, I then tried to look for something that would help me grapple with what we were going through. But there was nothing out there that really addressed what my wife and I were going through,” he recalled.
That was when Hanish realized that he could be the first person to tackle the subject of losing a child late in the pregnancy head on.
“Because the truth is stillbirth is relatively common. At the end of the day, my wife and I felt so alone. We did not know who to reach out to. And my hope is that through the film, people who have been through this would know that they are not really alone, that there are people out there that they can reach out to,” he pointed out.
Asked why the title is “Return to Zero”, Hanish said the term refers to “a place where you you have to build an entire new life philosophy from scratch.”
“Because when you lose a child in this way in a way you never thought possible because no one ever talked to us about it. You come to a place where you question everything. I mean, it makes you question if you’re safe, how the world works as well your relationships. Basically, it takes you back no matter how far up the ladder you’ve reached. It takes you all the way back to zero point, kinda like starting over.”
Minnie Driver and Paul Adelstein play a successful couple who has to deal with the devastating loss of their son in 'Return to Zero'.
For the film, Hanish has assembled a stellar cast headed by Academy award nominee Minnie Driver (“Good Will Hunting”) and Paul Adelstein (“Private Practice”) as the couple who find it hard to recover from their loss.
“I know people know Minnie Driver has been nominated for both an Oscar and an Emmy but I don’t think people think of her as one of the top actresses in the world. I think she really is. She has courage and wit and intelligence and she’s game for anything,” Hanish pointed out.
“I did not know Paul Adelstein personally but I think he brought such a fresh, interesting take to his television roles that I was really excited with what he can do with a film role. Turns out, he’s really superb. The two of them have a special chemistry that Minnie said she’s only had with in the few other times in her career. One was with Matt Damon; the other time was with Eddie Izzard on that television show ‘The Riches’ which she was wonderful in, and with Paul.”
One of the scenes that impressed Hanish the most about Driver and Adelstein was also the most difficult for him to shoot.
“It’s the scene where Minnie gives birth to her son and she finds out that he already died. The day we shot that scene was the most intense day of production that I’ve ever been associated with, and I think it would always be,” he vividly remembered.
“For Minnie to get to a place where she could pull off the extraordinary performance that she did, I told her I never thought I’d ever see someone that would remind me of that day when I saw my wife gave birth to our son Norbert, who had already passed away. But she did, and so did Paul. When I mentioned this to her the next day, she just looked at me and said, ‘Well that’s good. I’m glad to hear it because I can’t remember a thing from last night’.”
“Return to Zero” airs on Lifetime this Saturday, May 31 at 1AM and 11:45PM.
Hollywood director tackles crushing effects of stillbirth in Lifetime drama
Source: InterAksyon.com (May 30, 2014 at 10:19PM)
Continue...
No comments:
Post a Comment