VENTURA — The Museum of Ventura County will present the next screening of “Weaving the Past: Journey of Discovery,” an award-winning documentary by Santa Paula-born filmmaker Walter Dominguez at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 1 at the Regency Santa Paula 7 theater in Santa Paula. After the screening, there will be a Q&A with filmmaker Walter Dominguez and Executive Producer Shelley Morrison, who also starred as “Rosario” in the groundbreaking television comedy series, Will & Grace.
“The Museum of Ventura County is excited and honored to present Weaving the Past to the public and our museum members. We are dedicated to telling the story of Ventura County’s remarkable history and people, from the Indigenous era all the way through to the present, and this documentary film reveals an important part of that story,” Anna Bermudez, Museum of Ventura County’s Curator of Exhibits & Collections, stated in a media release.
Rev. Emilio N. Hernandez. Courtesy photo.
The documentary chronicles the quest by Dominguez to uncover and record the life story of his grandfather, the Rev. Emilio Hernandez of El Buen Pastor Methodist Church in Santa Paula.
Written and directed by Dominguez, Weaving the Past: Journey of Discovery was released in August, 2014 and has won over audiences and garnered tremendous grassroots support. Personal, powerful and inspirational, Weaving the Past follows Walter’s decade-long quest to find crucial missing pieces in his late grandfather Rev. Emilio Hernandez’s life. Rev. Hernandez was the respected and much-loved pastor of Santa Paula’s El Buen Pastor Methodist Church from 1945 to 1952. Long after his grandfather’s death in 1973, Walter began his journey to uncover the secrets in Hernandez’s early life and in the process Walter learned that his peace-loving grandfather had once been an armed freedom fighter and close friend with one of Mexico’s great revolutionaries and heroes, Práxedis Guerrero. Stunned by this, Walter broadened his quest to understand the wider historical forces in Mexico that compelled his grandfather and his colleagues to rebel, and that caused hundreds of thousands of Mexicans to flee their country and seek a new beginning in Southern California at the turn of the last century. Walter also sought to fulfill his grandfather’s dying wish to locate his long-lost family of origin in Mexico. Weaving together themes of family, faith, history and social justice, Weaving the Past sweeps up viewers and takes them on Walter’s unforgettable journey that vividly celebrates the forces that shape our lives.
Re-enactment of leaving Mexico. Courtesy photo
Executive Producer Morrison took on the role of producing Weaving the Past in order to ensure that this film, which required thirteen years to complete, was made with its original vision intact.
“For the filmmaker, Walter Dominguez, who also happens to be my husband, embarking on this film was an emotional, spiritual and transformative journey as he uncovered family mysteries and came to know about the remarkable people who shaped his grandfather’s life,” Morrison said. “Weaving the Past has generated an aura of excitement and enthusiasm in the Latino/Mexican-American community, and the remarkable thing is that the film also crosses over and reaches people of all ethnic backgrounds. Audiences come away deeply touched, and with a deeper appreciation of our diverse American history, culture and heritage.”
Dominguez is especially pleased to return to Ventura County to show the documentary.
Citrus workers in Santa Paula. (Courtesy of Collection of Emilio Hernandez)
“I am especially gratified to present my film here in Ventura County where I was born, in this still-agricultural area in Southern California, because so much of my life and our family’s story is rooted here, as depicted in my film,” he said. “As Weaving the Past took shape, I realized how much this locale has shaped my life and my vision as a filmmaker, and I wanted to honor this special place and its wonderful people. While this film tells the story of my family and its Mexican heritage, people of all backgrounds have discovered that seeing this film is a meaningful way to celebrate our shared universal experiences and the bonds we all have in common as human beings.”
The documentary screening is being presented by Los Angeles-based film production company Chasing Light Pictures LLC, the Museum of Ventura County and national distributor of award-winning films Tugg Inc.
For more information:
- Wednesday, July 1 at 6:30 p.m. at the Regency Santa Paula 7 Theaters – 555 W. Main St., Santa Paula, CA 93060 – Tickets: https://www.tugg.com/events/14751 [$10 general public; tickets will also be available at the theater box office that day.]
- For more information about “Weaving the Past” go to www.weavingthepast.com and Facebook.com/Weaving the Past: Journey of Discovery. (An EPK is available on the website.)
