Alan Govenar
DIRECTOR, WRITER
Alan Govenar is a writer, folklorist, photographer, and filmmaker. He is president of Documentary Arts, a non-profit organization he founded in 1985 to present new perspectives on historical issues and diverse cultures. Govenar has a B.A. with distinction in American Folklore from Ohio State University, an M.A. in Folklore and Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. in Arts and Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of thirty books, including Texas Blues: The Rise of a Contemporary Sound, Stompin’ at the Savoy: The Story of Norma Miller, Extraordinary Ordinary People, Everyday Music, Untold Glory, Stoney Knows How: Life as a Sideshow Tattoo Artist, Deep Ellum: The Other Side of Dallas, Portraits of Community, The Early Years of Rhythm and Blues: The Photography of Benny Joseph, and The Blues Come to Texas: Paul Oliver and Mack McCormick’s Unfinished Book. His book Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter won First Place in the New York Book Festival (Children’s Non-Fiction), a Boston Globe-Hornbook Honor; and an Orbis Pictus Honor from the National Council of Teachers of English.
Govenar’s film, Stoney Knows How, based on his book by the same title about Old School tattoo artist Leonard St. Clair, was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and was selected as an Outstanding Film of the Year by the London Film Festival. Govenar has also produced and directed numerous films in association with NOVA, La Sept/ARTE, and PBS for broadcast and educational distribution. His documentaries The Beat Hotel, Master Qi and the Monkey King, You Don’t Need Feet to Dance, and Extraordinary Ordinary People are distributed by First Run Features.
Govenar is also a playwright, whose musicals include Blind Lemon Blues and Lonesome Blues (with Akin Babatunde) and Texas in Paris. His musicals have been performed at the York Theatre (New York), Forum Meyrin (Geneva), Maison des Cultures du Monde (Paris), Zuiderpershuis (Antwerp), Leidse Schouwburg (Leiden), Regentes (Den Haag), and Oude Luxor (Rotterdam).
His artist books and photographs are in collections in the United States and abroad, including The Museum of Modern Art (New York), Victoria and Albert Museum (London, Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), National Portrait Gallery (Washington, DC), and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Govenar’s film, Stoney Knows How, based on his book by the same title about Old School tattoo artist Leonard St. Clair, was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and was selected as an Outstanding Film of the Year by the London Film Festival. Govenar has also produced and directed numerous films in association with NOVA, La Sept/ARTE, and PBS for broadcast and educational distribution. His documentaries The Beat Hotel, Master Qi and the Monkey King, You Don’t Need Feet to Dance, and Extraordinary Ordinary People are distributed by First Run Features.
Govenar is also a playwright, whose musicals include Blind Lemon Blues and Lonesome Blues (with Akin Babatunde) and Texas in Paris. His musicals have been performed at the York Theatre (New York), Forum Meyrin (Geneva), Maison des Cultures du Monde (Paris), Zuiderpershuis (Antwerp), Leidse Schouwburg (Leiden), Regentes (Den Haag), and Oude Luxor (Rotterdam).
His artist books and photographs are in collections in the United States and abroad, including The Museum of Modern Art (New York), Victoria and Albert Museum (London, Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), National Portrait Gallery (Washington, DC), and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Les Blank
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Les Blank (1935-2013) was an internationally renowned, independent filmmaker, whose poetic work offers intimate, idiosyncratic glimpses into the lives, culture, and music of the passionate people at the periphery of American society. His film topics have included Cajun, Mexican, Polish, Hawaiian, and Serbian-American music and food traditions, Afro-Cuban drummers, Texas blues men, Appalachian fiddlers, “flower children”, gap-toothed women, and the garlic plant.
Blank is perhaps best known for his feature-length Burden of Dreams (1982), documenting the chaotic production of fellow director, and friend, Werner Herzog’s 1982 film Fitzcarraldo in the jungles of South America. Honored with a Criterion DVD edition, and a British Academy Award, Roger Ebert called Burden of Dreams, “…one of the most remarkable documentaries ever made about the making of a movie.”
Another of Blank’s best-loved works is Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers (1980), a seminal food film featuring culinary pioneer Alice Waters, and the Gilroy Garlic Festival. This film, notorious for its mouthwateringness, was initially shown in “Aromaround” with garlic simultaneously roasted in-theater.
Other films include J'ai éte au bal, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, All In This Tea, How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock in Normandy, and A Poem Is A Naked Person.
Blank is perhaps best known for his feature-length Burden of Dreams (1982), documenting the chaotic production of fellow director, and friend, Werner Herzog’s 1982 film Fitzcarraldo in the jungles of South America. Honored with a Criterion DVD edition, and a British Academy Award, Roger Ebert called Burden of Dreams, “…one of the most remarkable documentaries ever made about the making of a movie.”
Another of Blank’s best-loved works is Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers (1980), a seminal food film featuring culinary pioneer Alice Waters, and the Gilroy Garlic Festival. This film, notorious for its mouthwateringness, was initially shown in “Aromaround” with garlic simultaneously roasted in-theater.
Other films include J'ai éte au bal, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, All In This Tea, How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock in Normandy, and A Poem Is A Naked Person.
Bruce “Pacho” Lane
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Bruce “Pacho” Lane is a visual anthropologist. Pacho was a volunteer in the first Peace Corps group, Colombia One, from 1961-63. He has traveled widely in Latin America, Europe, and Asia, and is fluent in six languages. He has taught at five universities, including RIT, and is an emeritus professor at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos in Cuernavaca. Mexico. His production company, Ethnoscope Film & Video, produces and distributes documentary films about Traditional & Popular Cultures and the Spirit that inspires them. Lane has directed 15 documentaries, and was the only Westerner to film in Afghanistan during the Soviet intervention. He has focused primarily on Mexican indigenous culture, and 8 of his films are about Mexican Indians. His most recent film, Warriors of the Sun, is about the revival of the 2500-year-old ritual of Los Voladores (the Flyers).
Didier Dorant
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Didier Dorant is a French cinematographer who has worked with Documentary Arts on numerous projects. He was the cinematographer for the feature films Extraordinary Ordinary People, Serving Second Chances, You Don't Need Feet to Dance, The Beat Hotel, and Master Qi and the Monkey King, for the short films Bridging Utopia, The Silent Witness Speaks, and The Poetry of Exactitude, and for video segments for The Franco-American Museum at the Chateau de Blérancourt. Dorant is a graduate of l'ESEC, Ecole Supèrieure d'Etudes Cinématographiques à Paris. For the last 28 years, he has been a Journalistes Reporter Caméraman and Grand Reporter Caméraman on documentaries, news magazines and news reports. In addition, he teaches at the CFPJ School of Journalism in Paris, France.
Robert Tullier
CINEMATOGRAPHER
As Director/DP, Robert Tullier has shot on oil platforms in the Arabian Gulf, documented missionaries in Samoa and directed major Fortune 500 executives along with prominent individuals in the arts and business community. His work has aired both nationally and internationally. A graduate of Southern Methodist University with a BFA in Broadcast Film Arts, he has won numerous national awards. Work with Documentary Arts includes Extraordinary Ordinary People, Serving Second Chances, The Beat Hotel, Voyage of Doom, Dreams of Conquest, The Devil’s Swing, Jaber, Sacred Steel, and The Hard Ride.
Jason Johnson-Spinos
EDITOR
Jason Johnson-Spinos has worked as an editor at Documentary Arts since 2011. He edited the feature films You Don't Need Feet to Dance, Serving Second Chances, and Extraordinary Ordinary People. He was an additional editor on The Beat Hotel, and edited the short films Bridging Utopia, The Silent Witness Speaks, World's Fair Waffle, and One Man Band: Al Howard, in addition to working on numerous other Documentary Arts projects. With The Documentary Group in NYC, he assistant edited the documentaries Angle of Attack and Dreamland. He is also the co-founder and marketing director of Outcry Theatre.
