DeWanda Wise, ‘Two Distant Strangers’ Oscar Winners Travon Free & Martin Desmond Roe Board Live-Action Short ‘Will I See You Again?’ As EPs

Matt Grobar
·3-min read

EXCLUSIVE: Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe, the filmmakers behind the Academy Award-winning 2021 live-action short Two Distant Strangers, have found their next awards play in Will I See You Again?, a live-action short co-written and directed by Michael Perez-Lindsey, which they’ve boarded as executive producers.

Others newly aboard the project as EPs include Mickey Meyer, the duo’s partner in entertainment company Unreasnble, and actress DeWanda Wise (She’s Gotta Have It).

More from Deadline

Co-written and executive produced by Rhett Lindsey, the short centers on two former college teammates who find themselves summoned to their late friend’s estate hearing after 20 years of estrangement. To claim their inheritance, they must first confront their past relationship while undergoing a polygraph test.

Pic marks one of the first directorial efforts for Perez-Lindsay, who has worked alongside top cinematographers as a digital imaging technician on productions like Roadside’s Hello, My Name Is Doris and Apple/A24’s The Sky Is Everywhere. Starring Richard Lawson (Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black), Nick Wechsler (Revenge), Hosea Chanchez (The Game), and Rosanny Zayas (The L Word: Generation Q), the short was produced by Valeria Lopez and Alex Coffey (The 11th Green), as well as Perez-Lindsey. It’ll be put up for Oscars consideration after screening at HollyShorts, where it was nominated for the Best LGBTQIA+ Award.

With eight Emmys between them, Free and Roe most recently won a Sports Emmy in 2022 for writing and directing What Agnes Saw, a short film about a 100-year-old Olympian, which was played as part of the opening ceremony during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Their critically praised documentary BS High premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was the most-watched documentary on HBO in 2023. With the aforementioned Two Distant Strangers, Free became the first African-American to win the Oscar for Best Live-Action Short. Currently, he and Roe are co-writing to direct an adaptation of S.A. Cosby’s best-selling novel Razorblade Tears for Paramount, with Jerry Bruckheimer aboard to produce.

An Oscar-winning and Emmy-nominated producer, who formerly served as President of Group Nine Studios, Meyer has sold and produced countless film and television projects for Hulu, Netflix, Disney, Max, Discovery+, Animal Planet and more. Digitally, he has programmed over 300 billion views across 50+ platforms, starting with his time at Maker Studios.

Breaking out with her starring role in Netflix’s series adaptation of Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It, Wise can currently be seen starring opposite Shailene Woodley and Betty Gilpin in Three Women, Starz’s adaptation of Lisa Taddeo’s 2019 work of non-fiction exploring female desire, which premiered in September. Earlier this year, she was seen leading the Blumhouse horror film Imaginary, which she also exec produced, also starring in Chris Pine’s directorial debut, Poolman, alongside Pine, Danny Devito, and Annette Benning. Previous credits include Jurassic World: Dominion, The Harder They Fall, Jenn Kaytin Robinson’s comedy Someone Great, and Netflix/Sony’s Fatherhood opposite Kevin Hart.

Wise is repped by CAA, M88, and Del Shaw Moonves; Free by AGI Entertainment Media & Management, CAA, and Yorn, Levine, Barnes; Roe by WME, 3 Arts Entertainment, and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller; and Meyer by WME.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Latest stories