Alan Govenar

A journey through BATMAN ALLEY, an area of Sao Paulo, Brazil covered in street art and graffiti.

In today's uncertain world, what is the meaning of home? Over four years, filmmaker Alan Govenar talked to over 60 people around the globe about the evolving ways we think about one of our most basic needs — from a student in Buenos Aires to a homeless couple living in a makeshift tent in the wods, a hot dog vendor in New York City to an artist in Nairobi. As global crises have left millions both bound to and displaced from their habitats, LOOKING...

An intimate look at black cowboys as they gather for a rodeo and dance on the 40 acre Circle 6 Ranch in Raywood, Texas. A dirt road leads onto the ranch, where all of the structures, including a frame house, rodeo arena, and barn, are hand-wrought. A.J. Walker, his wife Pam, and his son, Anthony, are preparing for the monthly rodeo. This rodeo, which draws from the surrounding communities, is very much a family operation. Black cowboys drive their...

This documentary chronicles efforts to provide survival resources and opportunities for homeless and at risk people to start a new life. Intertwined in the day-to-day operations of The Stewpot, the film focuses on three of its clients and their deeply personal struggles to stabilize their lives: Gerald Williams, a musician whose crack addiction ruined his career; Alisa Flores, a victim of an abusive relationship; and Velietta Dickens Rogers, a rape...

An astonishing documentary about a man who overcomes his disability one day at a time, Alan Govenar's new film reveals the extraordinary life of African immigrant Sidiki Conde. Sidiki lost the use of his legs to polio at age fourteen. Today, he balances his career as a performing artist with the almost insurmountable obstacles of day-to-day life in New York City. From his fifth-floor walk-up apartment, he traverses down the stairs on his hands and...

An entertainer for nearly seventy years, Al Howard, ONE MAN BAND, could be seen outside local businesses in his trailer singing and playing his instruments in Grand Prairie Texas.

The setting is simple, but the stories, songs, and poems of Osceola Mays are remarkable indeed. In them, the past is recounted with a reverent intensity that expresses the deeply felt emotions of three generations of black Texans. The harsh realities of segregation and discrimination are juxtaposed with the importance of family and community life in these spirituals and poems learned by Osceola Mays from her mother, Azalene Douglas, and her grandmother,...

In 1964, Mariepaul Vermersch and her parents, Maurice and Rose, arrived at the World's Fair site in Queens and set up a booth serving the popular street food from their home in Brussels, Belgium's capital. They wanted to call them Brussels Waffles, but Rose discovered that Americans didn't know where Brussels was. They began calling them Bel-Gems or Belgian Waffles. They were unlike almost every other waffle served in the United States until then:...

This heart-wrenching short film about the effects of K2 addiction puts the viewer right on the streets of Dallas, Texas, where the drug is taking lives every day. K2 is a synthetic cannabinoid up to 100 times as potent as marijuana, the drug causes hallucinations, violent behavior, and leaves some comatose.

En route to a party in Paris, France, Akin, a black actor from Dallas, bonds unexpectedly with Aziz, a driver from Morocco, who says his cab is the "Karaoke Taxi." As Aziz winds through the streets of Montmartre, Akin starts singing with him, much to the amazement of the filmmaker, iPhone in hand, squeezed into the back seat with his wife and son, laughing as quietly as they can as the car starts and stops and the enthusiasm of the performance intensifies....