Second Chances — Feature Screenplay

A generation after a washed-away phone number cost a lost love, and the untold truth of an unfinished Camino a lifetime of regret, a widowed father gets a second chance at both.

Project Status

Second Chances is a completed feature screenplay inspired by the well-received short screenplay Love on the Camino. Second Chances is currently seeking a production company, financing partners, and packaging support. Writer/director John R. Rogers is developing the project independently and intends to direct.

Format & Genre

Format: Feature film
Genre: Drama / Romance
Timelines: 1982, 1992, and Present Day
Setting: The Camino de Santiago, including Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and the Pyrenees in France. In Spain the locations include Roncesvalles, Burguete, Pamplona, Puente la Reina, Burgos, the Meseta, Cruz de Ferro, O’Cebreiro, Castro de Castromaior, O’Hospital, and Santiago de Compostela. Various interior and secondary scenes would be shot in Austin, Texas.

Why This Story, Why Now

The Camino de Santiago has been walked continuously since the 9th century and draws more than 400,000 pilgrims a year from every part of the world. It is ancient yet completely current. Yellow trail markers, scallop shells, Roman bridges, mountain fog, and cathedral plazas form a beautiful cinematic landscape to place the story. Second Chances uses that setting across three generations of one family.

Comparable films include The Way (2010), Patagonia (2010), About Time (2013), Past Lives (2023), and Sideways (2004), and of course Italy’s highest-grossing film of all time, Buen Camino (2025). All are journey-driven, character-centered films.

Estimated Production Scope

A preliminary shooting plan calls for approximately 30 days. Roughly 8 days would be spent filming in the Austin, Texas area, covering a family garage, dining room, driveway, hospital, and cemetery. Roughly 20 days would be filmed across France and Spain along the actual Camino route, with a few days for aerial and drone work supporting the film’s recurring map-and-landscape motif, plus contingency and pickup days. The screenplay’s three interwoven timelines and mixed American and European cast point toward a modestly budgeted international co-production, likely pairing a U.S. and Spanish and/or French production entity.

Love on the Camino — Short Screenplay