We are honored that our newest film, “Mr. Joe Lives Alone” is nominated for best documentary at the Västerås Film Festival.
Ninety-six year old Joe Okman shares his early memories. Born in Vasherie, Louisiana, Joe grew up in abject poverty. His parents were German immigrants and sharecroppers. He describes his childhood: ‘We didn’t pay rent. We didn’t have no money to pay no damn rent…I started hunting when I was 12. We had to hustle up for food. Those were hard them days.’
Both parents died before Joe reached adulthood, and his eldest brother worked on a farm earning eighty cents a day to support the family.
In his 20s, Joe went to work in a factory where he saved enough money to buy a plot of land in Gretna, Louisiana. This is where he built a house with his own hands.
Joe’s wife of 47 years is at the end of her life suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s. Joe nurses her to death and then waits for his own release. Alone. In the house he built with his own hands.
The film explores themes of loneliness, solitude and disconnectedness. Joe’s faculties fail him: his eyes and ears are not what they used to be, and his connection to the outside world becomes tenuous as he withdraws from a modern high-tech world that he does not understand.
