| Produced in collaboration with homeless people and shown
on PBS, this thought provoking homeless video is recommended by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The video is
widely considered to be the best and most broadly applicable case study available on the scope and diversity of
homelessness in America. |
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A Journey with the Homeless:
The Producer's Story
by Pat Hennessey
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I first learned about homelessness while I was traveling and living out of my VW bus. With a copy of "Vagabonding the USA"
and $300.00, I left Minneapolis in the Fall of 1985 and didn't return until the next summer.
Along the way, I shared a campsite in the Black Hills with a homeless Vietnam vet who was "living off the land;" traveled
with a homeless hitch hiker who claimed to be a recovering Morman; and met junkies who lived on the streets in the
Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco.
But while I was often broke, I never felt homeless. I was a vagabond riding low but never bottoming out. And I began to see
that just as being broke and being impoverished are not necessarily the same, living out was not always the same as being
homeless. Being homeless seemed to run much deeper than its most obvious symptom - the lack of housing.
When I returned to Minneapolis, I went back to college and developed an interest (or addiction) for
writing and film/video production.
During part of this time, I lived in downtown Minneapolis in an old warehouse building. With its complete lack of security,
I often came home to a new guest sleeping in the hallway or under the stairwell. Over time, and sometimes over dinner, I got
to know some of them and their dramatic life stories.
I wondered why their stories of being homeless never seemed to be told. Instead the "experts" always seemed to speak for them
in the media, giving the public more statistics but very little heartfelt understanding.
So during the Summer of 1992, I began working with the real homeless experts, those who lived the experience everyday, in
order to create a documentary not about them but with them. Together we created a movie so personal and intimate that we
decided to call it "The Homeless Home Movie."
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Pat Hennessey's Filmography
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Produced and Directed "The Homeless Home Movie" (1996)
1996 Telly Award Winner for documentary excellence
"Best Documentary" at the 1996 Main Street Film Festival in Los Angeles
Directed 'The History of the American Hobo" (1994)
This video documents the history of the hobo from the Civil War to the 1994
Also includes the coronation of a "Hobo King"
Wrote and Directed the movie "Free Fall" (1992)
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©copyright, 2005