Middle of Nowhere

What happens when love takes you places you never thought you would go? When her husband, Derek, is sentenced to eight years in a California prison, Ruby drops out of medical school to maintain her marriage and focus on ensuring Derek's survival in his violent new environment. Driven by love, loyalty, and hope, Ruby learns to sustain the shame, separation, guilt, and grief that a prison wife must bear. Her new life challenges her to the very core of her identity, and her turbulent path propels her in new, often frightening directions of self-discovery.

Ava DuVernay’s elegant and emotionally inspiring debut portrays the universal dilemma of how a woman maintains herself as she commits to loving and supporting someone through hardship. Featuring luminous performances by a cast of rising stars led by Emayatzy Corinealdi and Omari Hardwick, Middle of Nowhere infuses gravity and grace into the prison tale and marks the arrival of an important new directorial talent.

-Sundance Institute, 2012