The Durango Independent Film Festival is just around the corner, and this year, it’s celebrating its 20th anniversary.
The fest will kick off Wednesday night with free film screenings at Durango Arts Center and Gaslight Twin Cinema, courtesy of The Durango Herald. Be sure to check out “Best of the Fest: 20 Years of Great Films,” showing at 7 p.m. at the Gaslight. (And be sure to get to the theaters early to get a seat.)
If you go
WHAT: 20th Anniversary Durango Independent Film Festival.
WHEN: Various times Wednesday to March 9.
WHERE: Various venues in downtown Durango, including screenings at Durango Arts Center, 802 East Second Ave., and Gaslight Twin Cinemas, 102 E. Fifth St.
TICKETS: Various passes available. To buy passes, visit https://tinyurl.com/2y5fj4fw.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit durangofilm.org.
One of the movies in the narrative features category of the festival is “Road To Everywhere,” directed by Michael Paradies Shoob and produced by Joseph Mealey. The film is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday and 5 p.m. March 8, both times at the Gaslight.
“Road To Everywhere” is a continuation of Shoob’s film “Driven.” It’s the story, according to the movie’s website, of Los Angeles cab driver Jason Schuyler (played by Whip Hubley), who is offered the fare of a lifetime by Jake (Robert Mirabal, from Taos Pueblo, New Mexico), a local casino dealer and gambler. Jake asks Schuyler to drive him to the Navajo Nation in Arizona, the home he abandoned 30 years ago. Jake’s dream is to see his grandson compete in a Native American rodeo.
The story picks up 30 years after “Driven,” and features many of the original cast members, including Hubley, who has been a Hollywood mainstay, having played numerous roles including “Hollywood” in the original “Top Gun.”
Mirabal has an impressive CV as well: He’s been on “Yellowstone,” “Woman Walks Ahead” and is an award-winning Native American flute player and maker.
“Driven” is based on Shoob’s experiences driving a cab for about a year in California, in Venice and Hollywood. His time behind the wheel and getting to know other drivers was invaluable to the film, he said, because he had a chance to get to know his co-workers.
“At one point, Yellow Cab went out of business, so all the little rebel cab companies were fighting each other, and it was sort of like a free for all, all over LA for a while, and that was when I drove. So we made that a major story point of the original film,” he said. “What I really wanted to do with that film was, I drove with these guys and they were fascinating people. Everybody had a different story. There were big dreams, but there were also just a lot of interesting characters. And I felt like most people get in a cab and they have no interest in the driver. I thought, what if we make a movie where it’s not about the passenger, but about the lives of the drivers who are wallpaper that no one notices?”
The idea to pick up where the original story left off was Shoob wondering what would have happened to the drivers 30 years later – and also, what would happen if two seemingly different people were shut in a car together for an extended period of time?
“I think what drove me is, here two people, superficially who would seem to have nothing in common, but they have everything in common,” he said. “I feel like the story – ultimately, we’re all the same people. They’re more alike than different. When you see the movie and they start talking, they feel like they should have nothing in common. They have everything in common, and have a lot to learn from each other, and they need to trust each other. You know, the trust that’s lost in the world, and the trust that these guys hopefully find in the movie is why I think the movie was worth making.”
“Road To Everywhere” also has a Durango connection: Mealey not only lived in Durango for a time in the 1970s, having moved to town from California in 1975 to ski at Purgatory, he also worked as a photographer at The Durango Herald. And, he also worked as a local hire for films, including the 1978 disaster flick “Avalanche.”
“When ‘Avalanche’ came to town, I was working at Tamarron, and got on as a local hire on the special effects group, throwing plastic Styrofoam snow into the fans, which took them years to clean up,” he said.
It was his work as a local hire that made Mealey fall in love with the process of film, so he moved back to Los Angeles and applied to the American Film Institute, using his portfolio he put together in Durango to gain acceptance. It was at AFI where he met Shoob. A cinematography fellow, Mealey shot “Driven” and the two have been friends and collaborators ever since.
And as for “Road To Everywhere,” it’s a film, Mealey said, that may attract people in a certain stage of their lives who may be looking back at some of their choices with the critical eye developed by time and experience.
“This is sort of an old-fashioned road movie. My wife described it as a coming of age movie for grownups,” he said. “I think the audience who loves it are people who’ve lived a little bit. These two characters have made some mistakes in their life, and they’re trying to reckon with it on this trip. People who are a little bit older, who have made mistakes, I think really grab onto it.”
For Shoob, film festivals are a way to have audiences experience a movie in a way that’s different from watching at home. It’s also a way for directors to find audiences for their work.
“You want to be seen. You want to find audiences, and when audiences show up at film festivals and these special screenings, they want to have an experience of the movie,” he said. “I don’t think when you watch a movie at home, it’s (the same). ... The laughs are different, and they come to give the movie more of a chance to wash over them, and it’s very affecting. It’s why I wanted to do this for my whole life; to have this relationship with audiences. Maybe film festivals are the best places to get that – where audiences come to really experience the film in a very deep way.
“We just had a big screening in Santa Fe for the movie and at the end, one woman stood up and said, ‘You know, I feel like I haven’t forgiven certain people in my life. I feel like I should just let go and forgive those people.’ I felt like ‘mission accomplished,’” Shoob said.
katie@durangoherald.com
