Filmmaker Peter McDowell ("Jimmy In Saigon"): "I'm a Big Tracker-Downer"

Show Notes

Dennis connects via Zoom with filmmaker Peter McDowell whose documentary Jimmy In Saigon is showing at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco on Sunday, June 19th at 1:15 PM at the historic Castro Theater and will be available to stream nationwide through Frameline.org from June 24th to 30th.  The Frameline program describes the film this way: "When his golden-haired, blue-eyed brother Jimmy mysteriously died in Vietnam in 1975, gay filmmaker Peter McDowell was just a kid, growing up within his family’s veil of silence. As an adult, armed with a video camera, Peter embarks on a quest to uncover the possibly queer brother he never knew." He talks about the 12-year odyssey he embarked on to make the movie, the use of animation in the fim, what his family thinks of the finished movie and Jimmy's quest to "explore hedonistic pleasures like never before." Other topics include: taking Uber motorcyles in Saigon, the regular Zoom meetings he has with groups of documentarians that keep him motivated, why the movies All That Jazz and Hair rocked his world, feeling connected to Harvey Milk, his ex-boyfriend-turned-Executive Producer Dan Savage, coming out in the mid-80's, his tips for tracking down people in other countries who haven't been heard from in decades and the beauty of brutal honesty.

www.jimmyinsaigon.com