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Home Again

The McGarry home, Pontiac, Michigan is the place of innocence and turmoil, contrasts and connectedness as an interracial family comes together in the 50’s. John, an Irishman and the patriarch, brought his shenanigans with him from County Cork. Clara, his beloved wife, has a weak heart. So, Dorothy is hired to help out. She is African American and brings a sensibility needed to raise their two boys together. Some forty years later, only John and Dorothy are left to remember. Their mutual experiences gives them strength to say goodbye. Home Again embraces the many meanings of home

  • Janet Torreano Pound
    Director
  • Janet Torreano Pound
    Writer
  • Demetrios Anastasiow
    Producer
    The Boonies, Out of the Box, A Box of Monsters, Love is a Monster
  • Ryan D'Silva
    Producer
    The Boonies, Out of the Box, A Box of Monsters, Love is a Monster
  • Will David Young
    Key Cast
  • Linda Boston
    Key Cast
  • Eva Rosenwald
    Key Cast
  • Barton Bund
    Key Cast
  • Morgan Breon
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, Narrative Fiction, Family
  • Runtime:
    29 minutes 50 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 15, 2015
  • Production Budget:
    5,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Black Magic 2k
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Janet Torreano Pound

Janet’s favorite thing about being from the Detroit area, besides the creative energy, is that it is one of the most ethnically diverse places in the world and most of her writing reflects that. As a Baha’i, she believes in the unity of mankind and tries to focus on what unites people. She’s been married for over four decades and has three grown children and grand babies. She started her
career acting in commercials and industrial films and traveling as a narrator for auto shows. From there, she became a talent agent and currently is a casting directors with Pound & Mooney Casting. As a casting director, Janet has worked on projects for Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, Drew Barrymore, Ryan Gosling and Spike Lee.

At forty, Janet tried her hand at writing and the rest is history. She’s been published and produced in NY, CA, MI, and IL.

Although, Home Again is her debut into film directing, she’s directed multiple theatre pieces including a new musical, Bethlehem Deli. One of her dreams will become a reality in the summer of 2015 as “Car Stars,” her musical tribute to Detroit, becomes a reality with a production at Meadowbrook Theatre in Rochester, Michigan.

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Director Statement

I always felt there was something I was meant to do. I thought it was acting but realized when I took my first stage bow, that wasn’t it. The first thing I ever wrote was a monologue called Dorothy which I stretched to a ten-minute piece and then a full length play called Home Again, Jiggety Jig. From there, Home Again the film was conceived. Home Again is a family drama that takes place in the 50’s, 70’s and the 90’s. The characters are Irish and African American, young and old. They experience the innocence and turmoil of the times. They reaffirm what family is and what it means to go home again.

We tried to make a film that was honest, funny, and heart warming, hoping the connectedness we felt shooting would transcend onto the screen.

The budget we had was so small most gave their talent and time for free. It forced us to think outside of the box and come up with creative ways to get around problems. For instance, we shot in a Bed & Breakfast and the owners needed to put up a Christmas tree for their guests. The movie takes place in the fall and having a Christmas tree in the background didn’t work. To have it make sense, I wrote a scene where the family pretends it’s Christmas for Timmy’s homecoming from Viet Nam. It may be one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Throughout the filming, syncronistic experiences occurred to make us smile and know we were on the right track like the fact that the scene in the driveway takes place in 1959 and the old Pontiac stopped on its mark and the odometer read 01959. And as John McGarry says “You can’t most always sometimes tell what you least expect the most.”