Most of Kevin Costner’s most famous films wouldn’t seem to be easy sells. How would it today sound to pitch a studio on a Civil War soldier befriending Sioux Indians on the South Dakota plains? Or on an Iowa farmer who hears voices?

But while Costner’s industry clout was once impervious, he’s had to fight harder for his latest, the drama “Black and White,” which premièred over the weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival. In the film, written and directed by Mike Binder, Costner plays a Los Angeles attorney devastated by the deaths of his daughter and wife.

A custody battle over his granddaughter ensues between Costner’s character and the child’s African-American grandmother (Octavia Spencer).

“I was pretty convinced someone would want to make it, but that just wasn’t the case,”

-Costner said in a recent interview.

“I didn’t fight, I just kind of surrendered. So I used my own money to make it.”

Costner and Binder previously teamed up for 2005′s well-received “The Upside of Anger,” in which Costner (playing off his “Bull Durham” fame) played a retired baseball player who becomes romantically involved with a mother of three (Joan Allen), whose husband has gone missing.

“Black and White” is an ambitious portrait of race in America, a not especially Hollywood-friendly subject.

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