Southern Circuit Finalist: Loving John
Filmmaker: Robert Rooy
Location: Frederick, MD
John Godinet is an irrepressible Pacific Islander and ultra-runner living with his husband Peter in rural Maryland. He’s outrun abuse as a teenager and discrimination as an adult, but now has a new adversary: ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).
Navigating this disease is physically and emotionally exhausting. But John and Peter have a tried-and-true 40-year survival strategy: deep-seated love cloaked in biting humor. LOVING JOHN dives into the complexities, imperfections and power of love, lived with a ticking clock. It invites viewers to deeply inhale the fullness of our shared human experience, made all the more precious because of its transience.
Robert Rooy is an award-winning independent filmmaker who has worked in more than twenty countries, creating media with and for international development, human rights and environmental organizations. In addition, he has worked as a DGA first assistant director on more than forty films, including Lonesome Dove, Honeymoon in Vegas, Minority Report and The West Wing. His documentary, Deej, received a 2017 George Foster Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy in the category of Outstanding Graphic Design and Art Direction.
