5Q's w/Bill Wisneski "The Roads Most Traveled" Director
#1: Can you describe your movie and why somebody should see it in less than 140 characters?
One reviewer said “This documentary is informative, inspiring, heartfelt and an eye-opener. It touched my heart and made me realize that life is a risk.”
#2: What do you want the Borrego Springs Film Festival audience to know about your film that isn’t obvious from its title?
LA Times photojournalist Don Bartletti spent much of his career illuminating the causes and consequences of illegal immigration into the United States from Mexico and Central America. Each year thousands of undocumented Central Americans stow away for 1,500 miles on the tops and sides of trains. Many are children in search of a parent who left them behind when they traveled north in search of a better life for their family. Our film examines Don’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series “Enrique’s Journey,” which documents one child’s quest to find his mother in North Carolina.
#3: What is your movie making background? Tell us about yourself.
I started my career at the CBS affiliate KTVL in Southern Oregon, where I was able to work in a wide variety of roles for the small TV station. My passion for documentary filmmaking was developed while in graduate school in the Edward R. Murrow program at Washington State University. I’ve worked at Palomar College Television for the last twenty years, where I’ve had the privilege of directing more than a dozen documentaries. Some of the wide variety of topics we’ve covered have included: how climate change is affecting California’s water supply, why Southern Sea Otters are dying, the ecological disaster at the Salton Sea, and human trafficking. Our department has been fortunate to have won 35 Pacific Southwest Emmy Awards, which is a testament to the talented team I’ve been able to work with over the years.
#4: What was the biggest lesson learned in getting your film made?
Sometimes you have to cut something from the story that seems unfathomable at first. We had an amazing encounter with smugglers while we were filming in Tijuana, but decided to delete the scene in the last moments of editing when we realized the film flowed much better without it.
#5: What does the future hold for your film and you?
“The Roads Most Traveled” will likely air nationally on PBS in the Spring of 2021.
We are currently working on a feature length documentary about two orphans of the Vietnam War who were raised in the United States and are now on a quest to understand their origins. Kirk and Catherine are two of the thousands of Vietnamese children adopted by families scattered throughout the world during the war. Miraculously, nearly 50 years after leaving the same orphanage in central Vietnam and living vastly different lives in the U.S., Kirk and Catherine were reunited in 2019.
Through their intimate reflections on life as Vietnam War adoptees, the documentary will explore Kirk and Catherine’s search for healing for themselves, other orphans, veterans, and families still deeply pained by the effects of the war. If COVID restrictions allow, we will travel to Vietnam in early summer of next year to document Kirk and Catherine’s journey as they seek the answers they have longed to find for their entire lives.
