Horton Foote: The Road to Home

Horton Foote: The Road To Home is a documentary that chronicles the creative journey of acclaimed Texas writer Horton Foote through his own eyes and voice at the end of his life. Foote, who was born and raised in Wharton, Texas, went on to become a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, the winner of two Academy Awards for screenwriting, an Emmy Award for television writing, and was recipient of the National Medal of Arts among numerous other theatrical and literary prizes. His long and successful 70-year career of writing consisted primarily of stories set in the small town of Harrison, Texas, a fictitious version of Wharton. Horton was known for his subtle yet deeply-layered and profound storytelling -- about family, human connections, struggles, resilience and redemption.

The filmmakers followed Foote around with a camera for the last three years of his life. At the time Foote was in his early 90s but still very active and working on two different theater projects. One was a play called “Dividing the Estate” destined for Broadway, the other an epic nine-play cycle called “The Orphan’s Home Cycle” based on his father’s life. It was also headed for the New York stage. Anne Rapp, producer/director of the film, had been friends with Horton and the Foote family since 1981, after she worked as a script supervisor on his award-winning film Tender Mercies. Joe Dishner, one of Rapp’s producing partners, had known him as well since 1984 when he worked as a location manager on the film 1918, and later The Trip to Bountiful. Those relationships with Foote allowed the filmmakers to capture a much more personal and inside view of his life and work, and also capture the connection between his hometown and that successful body of work in more intimate detail.