Long ride home: 'Road to Everywhere' takes viewers on a personal journey from Los Angeles to the Navajo Nation

Driving is a recurring theme for filmmaker Michael Shoob.

Long ride home: 'Road to Everywhere' takes viewers on a personal journey from Los Angeles to the Navajo Nation

In the mid-1990s, Shoob wrote and directed a movie called “Driven” that was based on the experiences of driving a cab in Los Angeles. Fast-forward to current day, with “Road to Everywhere,” a follow-up to “Driven,” having its initial preview screening at The Lensic Performing Arts Center at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 16.

“(‘Road to Everywhere’) is a road movie about two guys who are kind of an unlikely pairing,” Shoob explained. “One is the Native American character, Jake, who asks the veteran cab driver, Schuyler, to take him (from Los Angeles) to the Navajo reservation in Arizona. That’s kind of the storyline. It’s really a classic, in my view, road movie, a two-hander about two guys who would, on the surface, not seem to have a lot in common, but ultimately have a lot in common.”

Schuyler is offered the fare of a lifetime by Jake, a local casino dealer and gambler. Jake asks Schuyler to drive him to the Navajo Nation in Arizona, the home he abandoned 30 years ago. Jake’s dream is to see his grandson compete in a Native American rodeo, according to the film’s website, roadtoeverywheremovie.com.

Robert Mirabal, a renowned musician and Native American flute player from Taos Pueblo, plays the character Jake and Whip Hubley portrays Los Angeles cab driver Jason Schuyler.

“We have two actors, one is Robert Mirabal, who’s a very charismatic musical performer, but hasn’t done a ton of acting, especially on film, and this is him in a leading role,” Shoob said. “And I really feel like he’s got tremendous charisma and star quality. I just think he’s a movie star. And then, on the other side, we have Whip Hubley who was a star in Hollywood. He was in films like ‘Top Gun,’ ‘Tales of the City,’ ‘Species.’ He was the star of the ‘Flipper’ reboot in the early 2000s, and he left Hollywood, moved to New England, and this is his kind of coming back after being a star.”

Shoob said it was interesting seeing the two different trajectories, which created a chemistry between the two actors that he described as “kind of magical.”

“There is quite a few Native-based type of scripts that are out there and films and projects that are being produced,” Mirabal said. “But within this particular one, there was a plot twist to it that I really liked, ultimately, but it was also because it was taken from a perspective of just two normal people. It wasn’t necessarily a Native and this person. It was just two simple people. The character I had didn’t necessarily have to be Native. He could have been any other ethnic group. It just so happened that was the way it was written ... And there was a humor behind it that was really unique.”

A question-and-answer session will follow the screening. The panel will be made up of Shoob, Mirabal, Hubley and supporting actress, DezBaa’, who is a Santa Fe native.

The screening is $15, plus fees, to attend, with all proceeds benefitting the Intertribal Connection Initiative.

“Intertribal Connection is based on creating a type of wellness through cultural exchange and based around sobriety,” Mirabal said. “You know, just committing yourself to a traditional lifestyle that is based on offering other people and other young Native people an opportunity to experience international cultural exchange.”

Rozanna M. Martinez is the arts and entertainment editor of the Albuquerque Journal. You can reach her at rmartinez@abqjournal.com.