'The Holdovers' up for 5 Oscars, Best Picture. Portsmouth couple on production team.

PORTSMOUTH — South End couple and filmmakers Amy Greene and Chris Stinson are again nearing the pinnacle of silver screen achievement, as “The Holdovers,” a movie for which they were on the production team, received five Oscar nominations Tuesday, including one for Best Picture.

“It’s been a very special past year,” Greene said.

Starring Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Paul Giamatti, "The Holdovers" has been nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Giamatti), Best Supporting Actress (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing at the 96th Academy Awards.

Stinson is an executive producer for "The Holdovers" and Greene, his producing partner, was also stunt coordinator.

Filmed in Massachusetts and set in 1970, the movie follows Giamatti’s character Paul Hunham, a cranky, unpopular history teacher at Barton Academy, a fictional New England boarding school. Hunham is forced to stay on campus over the Christmas holiday to chaperone students with nowhere to go for the holidays, growing close to one while revealing more about his own past.

In 2021, Greene and Stinson won two Oscars for their work producing “Sound of Metal,” a film shot in Massachusetts and New Hampshire that won Best Sound and Best Achievement in Film Editing. The couple are currently attending the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, where they celebrated their "The Holdovers" Oscar nominations with fellow filmmaker friends who produced “American Fiction” and “Poor Things,” both of which were also nominated for Best Picture.

From 2021: 'Sound of Metal' wins Best Sound, Film Editing Oscars; Portsmouth-based producers elated

The couple own Live Free or Die Films, a production company with offices on Congress Street in Portsmouth, as well as in Boston and Los Angeles. They have have individually and collaboratively worked on movie sets for numerous acclaimed films, such as “Sound of Metal,” “Knives Out,” "Leave No Trace," "Me and You and Everyone We Know,” "Chronic,” "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "Dumb and Dumber To."

Greene and Stinson’s relationship with Payne began a few years ago when they produced another film he directed.

“He kept saying he had a script he wanted to give to us and shoot in New England,” Stinson remembered. “Some people say that and it never happens, but Alexander actually followed through. He shared the script with us and we both read it and were like, ‘This is incredible.’”

That film was "The Holdovers," which featured Randolph the prep school’s head cook and mother to a deceased Vietnam War soldier, as well as Domonic Sessa as the student that Giamatti’s character grows close to over the holidays.

“That’s something that was really meaningful to us,” Greene added. “Knowing we wanted to work with Alexander again, we were really excited to find out the next movie was a New England story.”

The movie was shot in five schools across Massachusetts, including on the campus of Northfield Mount Hermon School, as well as in Boston and Worcester, throughout early 2022.

With the movie shot in their New England backyard, the couple drove back home to Portsmouth many nights after shooting wrapped for the day.

“It was a very cold winter. We had a really amazing cast and crew and we all bonded through it, but it was cold,” Greene said. “We were chasing the weather because Alexander wanted to shoot it with snow.”

Those snowy scenes included Greene teaching Giamatti how to drive a decades-old car with no power steering while he sported a fake lazy eye, a choice made by Payne and his crew for the character, all on black ice.

“Working with Paul Giamatti was absolutely incredible. He is everything you think he is,” Greene stated. “He is a very kind, humble and fun guy and we had a lot of fun working on this together.”

Stinson believes "The Holdovers" resonates with generations of students, past and present, who may not have originally seen eye to eye with a teacher but went on to become friends.

The producer also commended Payne’s storytelling ability and his desire to highlight everyday, flawed characters from all walks of life, rather than action stars or superheroes. Better yet, the film was released in a year when movie theater seats began to fill up again due to blockbusters like “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” two other films nominated for Best Picture and a host of other Oscars.

“We certainly had a lot of people telling us they hadn’t gone to a movie theater in over 10 years, especially our neighbors in Portsmouth,” Stinson said. “'The Holdovers'" is bringing back a really big audience, younger and older. It has a really big appeal.”

Greene and Stinson are working on forming a movie company that would be based in New Hampshire, a move intended to bring more filmmakers to New Hampshire and inspire the next wave of Granite State movie buffs to seek a career in film.

“There’s so much filmmaking to be done in New England,” Stinson said.

The 2024 Oscar winners will be crowned on March 10.

“I never had the opportunity to listen to the Oscar nominations while at Sundance,” Greene said. “It was an extra special moment.”

“It’s a fun time to be here,” Stinson said.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: 'The Holdovers' up for 5 Oscars; Portsmouth couple on production team