DALLAS – Dallas filmmaker Alan Govenar’s film, LOOKING FOR HOME, produced by Documentary Arts and distributed by First Run Features, will play a one-night-only screening at the Angelika Film Center - Dallas (Mockingbird Station, 5321 E Mockingbird Ln #230) on Thursday, Dec. 8, at 7 p.m.
Tickets are $10 (
https://videofest.org/tickets/). The event is organized by Bart Weiss, VideoFest's artistic director, as a part of Dallas VideoFest’s Curated Film Series. A Q&A with Govenar will follow.
Over the course of four years, local filmmaker Alan Govenar talked to more than 60 people around the globe about the ever-evolving ways we think and feel about one of our most basic needs – from a college student in Buenos Aires to a homeless couple living in a makeshift tent in the woods in Dallas, a hot dog vendor in New York City, an artist in Nairobi, and a man and woman whose unlikely relationship emerged during France’s Covid lockdown.
As global crises have left millions of people bound to and displaced from their physical habitats, LOOKING FOR HOME searches for a deeper meaning of home — a concept universally embraced but now in an unprecedented state of flux.
"Through the pandemic, so many people spent time at home and had time to think about the concept of home," Weiss said. "In LOOKING FOR HOME (which was a film project started two years before the pandemic hit the world), Alan Govenar talks to people from all walks of life, stages of life and places of life, to bring us a deep meditation on home."
The film is edited by local theatre and film artist Jason Johnson-Spinos and features several locals as subjects: Akin Babatundé; Jeremy Davis; JB, Sheryl, and Peyton Nicholson; Vicki and Bill Gies; Milane Sarquis; Yolanda Montgomery; and Carol Adams.
The film premiered in New York City at Cinema Village Oct. 21-27. It's been a major success.
Richard Alaniz of the KPFK Film Club stated, “Writer/director Alan Govenar has created an endlessly fascinating, wide-ranging celebration of the diversity that is the human race. In his fabulous documentary, LOOKING FOR HOME, people from all walks of life share their thoughts and feelings, and show us what they believe a home is.”
Tom Needham of WUSB’s “The Sounds of Film” stated, “Govenar’s film is a transformative, hypnotic dream which makes one question one’s idea of home and life itself.”
For Overly Honest Film Reviews, Chris Jones wrote, “Heartwarming doesn’t even begin to describe this film; the interviews in this documentary make you understand and realize precisely what home means!”
And for FilmThreat, Alan Ng wrote, “LOOKING FOR HOME will expand your mind and pull you outside the walls of your ‘home,’ no matter what shape, form, or location it takes.”
Govenar is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright, photographer, and filmmaker. He is the director of Documentary Arts, a Dallas-based nonprofit organization he founded to advance essential perspectives on historical issues and diverse cultures. Govenar is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of more than thirty books.
About Documentary Arts:
Founded in 1985 by Alan Govenar to present new perspectives on historical issues and diverse cultures, Documentary Arts, Inc. is a non-profit organization based in Dallas, Texas, and New York City. Documentary Arts works to broaden public knowledge and appreciation of the arts of different cultures in all media.