It is June 9th in New York City’s historic Tribeca district, and I’m heading to the Roxy Hotel to meet filmmaker Sav Rodgers to discuss his documentary premiering at the eponymous festival, CHASING CHASING AMY. The film tells the story of young Sav Rodgers discovering Kevin Smith’s groundbreaking third film at the impressionable age of twelve and the awakening that ensued upon seeing queer people represented on film in such a frank and open way. The film had its first public premier the night prior, and though I was unable to attend the screening I was able to attend the afterparty. I mingled, drank free whiskey, and chatted with many of the people in attendance, all of whom praised the film’s openness and clarity. I had screened the film the night prior in my laundry room, further proof that there are not enough hours in the day. The film I saw was not the film I thought I’d see after seeing Sav’s TED Talk, wherein the young filmmaker explains his relationship to Smith’s film. CHASING CHASING AMY is less about Sav Rodgers chasing the checkered legacy of a 1997 romantic comedy and more about chasing the person he was destined to become.
I am grateful heading to the interview that the smoke from the ongoing Canadian wildfire has gradually begun to dissipate in the city. When I sped in Wednesday afternoon to pick up my Tribeca Film Festival press pass, the city was blanketed in sepia tone. New York City looked like a worn out old photograph of itself. Today, it is more like its new old self, and that suits me just fine. I note while walking south from Port Authority that just after crossing 20th Street, everyone is holding hands. All the pedestrians seemed to have partnered up, and their diversity and fearlessness is palpable. It makes my own footfalls lighter, and I’m soon at my destination, and early to boot. I’ll be meeting Sav along with producer Lela Meadow-Conner, both of whom I’ve met only once and very briefly the night before. I sit at the bar and sip water until I receive a phone call from the PR firm letting me know we’re ready to start. The two are seated at a large semicircular booth with a practical entourage peppered about in the surrounding tables.
I arrive at the hotel bar wearing a CHASING CHASING AMY hat that I had gotten at the premiere party the night prior, so naturally both Sav and Lela compliment me on the hat.
Eric McClanahan - It’s funny because I saw the hats and knew that I had to grab one because of the point in the film where you’re at the Secret Stash and you see the CHASING AMY crew hat in the display case and, I believe, you were told you could have it, but you insisted it was Kevin’s hat.
Sav Rodger - Yeah, Kevin had offered it to me and I thought… no, no thank you. It’s your hat.
Lela Meadow-Conner - But Riley was like “You deserve it.”
SR - Yeah, Riley’s always gonna say take it, but I’m more “No, it’s okay.”
EM - Voice of Reason. So, yeah, when I saw this I decided I needed a CHASING CHASING AMY hat, so thank you so much. So let’s start with the current moment: you’re at Tribeca. What does the enormity of this feel like?
SR - I don’t know if it feels real for me yet. I’ve just tried to keep my head down for the past few years working on it, occasionally providing updates to people who said “Hey, when’s this coming out?” I’d say “Someday.” So I’m really thankful that we’re able to be here and be able to share the movie with an audience. I was telling my mom this morning that it’s strange to think of this as no longer a thing that I’m working on - now it’s a thing that’s done. It’s a thing that we’ve done. How do you feel Lela?
LMC - Yeah, and I think what’s funny about this movie is that because we collectively as a producing team know a whole bunch of people in the industry, we were always talking about the film, and I think a lot of people thought that it had already come out. They’d say “Oh, I missed CHASING CHASING AMY” and we’d say “No, it hasn’t premiered yet.” We’ve been so vocal about working on this project for so long, and last night was so amazing and special and the audience reaction was what we knew it would be. Better, in fact.
SR - Well, what you knew it would be.
EM - Were you nervous?
SR - Of course! There’s a multitude of anxieties there. But please continue.
LMC - I think for any first time feature director it’s already intense but when you are in the movie and you’re part of the story I can’t even imagine how that must have felt for you.
SR - Yeah, it was strange, but to hear the clapping and the laughter at the right moments and have people come up to us afterwards and say how they felt about it and the very kind conversations that have ensued even in just the last twelve hours, it means everything to me. I feel understood and seen in a way that - you know when you put a movie like this out there it seems risky. It’s vulnerable, it’s honest, it’s complicated, it’s anxiety inducing. So I’m just so thankful that people have responded so kindly to it.
EM - So you say you’ve been working on this for quite some time. How long did this take to put together?
SR - I count day one as September 1st, 2018 and yesterday was June 8th, 2023 so it’s like four and a half years. That’s a long time, but you could also count from when I was twelve and watched CHASING AMY for the first time.
LMC - I think that’s really where the genesis of this is.
SR - And that’s a lifetime in the making, right?
EM - And that’s the next question: how does one go from seeing that film so many times and having it speak to you, then between then and now you became a documentarian in your own right and working on stuff, as you mentioned in the TED Talk - how did we get here? Like, how did you get the TED Talk, I suppose, would be the first step in this direction?
SR - I think I’m the only guy in history to like his Facebook ads. [laughs] I was in an artist residency at the time in Kansas City and when I was procrastinating on a script I went over to check my Facebook, as one does, and there was this ad for this thing called the TED Residency and Adobe was sponsoring a spot in the program. Basically the initiative was to get young folks involved in an opportunity like this - to have an opportunity to give a TED Talk. So I saw that and I ignored it a couple of times and it just kept coming back and I decided “Well, why not? It’s free, I lose nothing. I lose thirty minutes of my time if anything.” I recorded a one-minute little self tape saying who I was and what I wanted to do. I gave a very vague pitch for the TED Talk which was just to talk about LGBTQ storytelling. I included my director’s reel and a still from the last short that I’d directed. I sent it off, forgot about it, and a couple of weeks later I heard back that I was a finalist, and I thought “Well that’s weird.” Then we had the finalist interviews with Cyndi Stivers and Katrina Conanan-Riel, who are amazing human beings and deserve so much credit for platforming me in the first place, in the same way that Lela deserves credit for platforming me at her film festival, where we met. We did the interview, which was like a thirty minute conversation; probably the most fun “job interview” I’ve ever had. And they were like “Alright, well, we like you but you don’t really have an idea for a TED Talk, so if you had to give one tomorrow, what would it be about?” So I talked about my very specific relationship with the movie CHASING AMY and how I wanted to make a documentary about it. They sat there for a minute and then said “That is the most narrow and specific idea for a TED Talk that we have ever heard. We’ll call you in two weeks.” Three days later I found out that I got it, moved to New York, Adobe paid for it. Thank you Adobe. I got to spend three months in the program at TED HQ researching CHASING CHASING AMY stuff and meeting participants like Bob Hawk and at the end I gave a TED Talk. I shot my first day in the TED HQ studio and the next day we went on location in New Jersey, then a week later I moved back to Kansas then I moved to LA. It was a wild experience.
EM - Yeah, so that just put the pedal to the metal right there.
SR - For sure. To have institutional support behind who is otherwise an unknown filmmaker gave me credibility and legitimacy in a way that really made an impact and that’s how we were able to garner support for the idea of the documentary. Because on paper… What is this? This is just a lot of ideas all at once, but when you hear me give the 8-minute TED Talk, it all comes together and people can say “I get this. It’s a feeling.”
LMC - I think it’s really inspirational for other filmmakers, too, because you think about how you can turn your idea into something bigger with the institutional support of something like TED versus the institutions that independent filmmakers tend to go to. There are other opportunities to consider to position yourself and your idea.
SR - You know a lot of filmmakers will make a short film version of their feature and that’s a great way to do it. We couldn’t really do that with our movie, we had to figure out another way to get our story out there. So you also look at a filmmaker like Lulu Wang, with THE FAREWELL. She told that story on [NPR’s] This American Life and that’s where it was able to garner interest and support. While completely unintentional, I do think it’s a decent way to consider “What are other ways that I can tell my story to get people interested? How can I get a platform to then have a launch pad to talk about this thing that I know is special and if I can just get anybody to listen to it and believe in it then, yes, this can happen.”
EM - Yeah, I think Mike Birbiglia did the same thing with This American Life. He told his sleepwalking story and it became SLEEPWALK WITH ME.
LMC - Yeah, that and the kids who were flown - UNACCOMPANIED MINORS.
SR- Yes!
EM - Well this is really good to let filmmakers know that there are other venues and ways to get started. So let’s get into CHASING CHASING AMY.
SR - Oh, no!
EM - I talked to Dwight Ewell last night at the premiere party and I told him that I had seen the TED Talk so I thought I knew what the film would be, and I did not. And he was like “Right?” He said to be in that premiere and to hear people laugh at the right spots and take that journey along with you was so inspiring and so amazing. I see the film as kind of three parts, which begins as a celebration of the movie CHASING AMY, so let’s start there. When is the last time you watched CHASING AMY?
SR - The last time I watched CHASING AMY was when we were shooting b-roll on a soundstage with the VHS tape and my old CRT TV. We were filming b-roll for it and we basically ended up watching the whole movie. And I was just nodding, like “Yes, I’ve seen this!” That was back in October 2022 and I don’t know when I’ll see it again next.
EM - Does it still hold the same appeal?
SR - I think our relationships to things change over time. As explored in the movie, it doesn’t have the same significance to me as it did at age twelve and nor should it. I have a super rich life full of friends and colleagues and I have things that I make now and I have Riley. I’ve got all these things. So I don’t think there’s any piece of media in any form that could hold that much significance for me again because my life is already so full of other things. I don’t need something to take up that much space. But I still think it’s a terrific film and my relationship to it has obviously changed, but I still like the movie, yeah.
EM - Now do you think that a young person struggling with their identity or with their otherness can see CHASING CHASING AMY and find the kinship that you found in CHASING AMY?
SR - I sure hope so. I mean that would be a nice thing, to kind of have that full circle moment. One of the main critiques of CHASING AMY is “why didn’t somebody from the community make this movie?” Well, I made THIS movie. Please watch it.
LMC - You know, we wrote a lot of grants for this film and that was always one of the last lines of those applications, that what Sav hopes for this movie is that it sort of becomes what CHASING AMY was for him.
SR - And Lela is being generous here when she says “we” wrote a lot of grants for the film - She wrote a lot of grants for this film and did a phenomenal job.
EM - Obviously. So next in the film is the conversation of LGBTQ representation, in CHASING AMY, particularly, but also in the wider world of film. Obviously the world has changed so much since that film first came out. But it was one of the first films that gave a more autocratic voice to people from those communities. Is that why you wanted to defend CHASING AMY? For the community?
SR - I don’t know that I wanted to defend CHASING AMY. I wanted to explore why this movie meant so much to me and also explore the truths that other people have. My experience is not the only experience with CHASING AMY and it’s not the only story like mine. And also there are people who were deeply hurt by it, and the larger cultural context of how specifically queer women were treated at that time. So I think when I was younger I felt defensive about it. “What do you mean CHASING AMY is problematic?” But by the time I started making this film I fully accepted that not everybody will have the same relationship with this movie, nor should they. That would be weird, if CHASING AMY-
EM - Was universally loved?
SR - Right? There would be no story. It wouldn’t be interesting.
LMC - It was always about “How can multiple things be true at the same time?”
SR - Yes! Perfectly said.
EM - When I was talking to Dwight I talked about his character, Hooper X, and how great it was to have a double minority represented in film. I asked if that meant something to him, and he said yes and no. He said “I was the comic relief. I wasn’t given any agency. I wasn’t given a true voice. And all the scripts I got after that wanted me to be the comic relief. The sassy gay black man. I had to step away and write my own story.” And I think that’s what’s happening in CHASING CHASING AMY. It becomes your story in such a wonderful way. And I think the tonal shift was the Joey Lauren Adams interview. I was watching the film, having a good time, smile on my face, then she sits across from you and says “I don’t know what you want from me.” My heart dropped. Being a person who interviews people, interviewing actors who sometimes say “I just say words, man.” What were your feelings in that moment, sitting across from her?
SR - I think the way that you felt, watching it, shows that I must have done something effective, because that’s how I felt sitting there. I wanted the audience to go on the journey with me and worked really hard to make it feel that you were in the hot seat with me as an audience member. It was a very vulnerable difficult conversation, for both of us, but at the end of the day I’m very grateful that she shared that truth with me. Because, one, she didn’t have to. She didn’t have to agree to be interviewed, she didn’t have to let us into her home, she didn’t have to do any of those things in terms of how she participated in this documentary. But any type of feedback is a gift, and her sharing her vulnerability, her honesty, her story and trusting us with that is invaluable. So regardless of how I felt sitting there, what’s most important was that her truth was heard. Because I always remind people, this is my real life. This was her real life. This is Kevin’s real life. This is Guinevere [Turner]’s real life. This is Riley’s real life. What matters to me is that her story is heard and respected and prioritized in that moment. But it is uncomfortable to sit there and it is difficult to go back and watch cuts of it. I mean, you saw me.
LMC - Yeah, and there was a lot more to that interview that didn’t get into the movie but her honesty and authenticity is what comes through, and in some ways she is kind of the crux of the film, as you were saying. She really does give you that moment, Sav, of self-realization, I think, that you come to when you talk to her.
SR - Yes, you can see the cogs in my brain turning quite rapidly as I am adjusting to what the conversation now is and what my outlook moving forward in my life really becomes. Any naivete or anything is kind of stripped away in that moment and it’s like, “Okay, you wanted to make a movie about this and this is what a movie about this looks like. What are you going to do?”
LMC - I was going to say, I think in some ways, of course, the pandemic slowed everything down with this film, but in some ways I’m really grateful it did because it allowed Sav the opportunity to process how he would show that part of Joey’s story and how eventually it came into the narrative and where it landed in the film. I think if we hadn’t had that slow down it would have landed differently, I think. Processing it?
SR - Yeah, you know me. I get pretty impatient when it comes to post, and bless our post team. But I want to see what the movie is! And that takes a lot of time and a lot of energy, and it was difficult to sit with watching myself come of age in that way and look back on any mistakes I’d made or any naivete in a scene or what have you. So to be given the gift of more time, despite how awful that period of time is for humanity and the world, the tiniest silver lining in this pandemic is that we were given the gift of time to explore these things, like Lela said.
EM - Yeah, definitely a big pause. I agree with you that there’s a great tonal shift in the film, because it opens with you walking in the footsteps of CHASING AMY. Going to the places, recreating the poses, but by the end of the film we’ve forgotten the beginning because we were so captivated by you. And originally, I’ve heard that you were reticent to put yourself in the film.
SR - That is correct.
EM - What made you ultimately decide to do so?
SR - Well…
EM - When did you know this was your story?
SR - I don’t know the exact moment when I knew that this was going to have to become a story about my life. I really don’t. But, when you get one note saying “Sav, you should really be in this.” Then “Hey, Sav, you’re the reason why we’re all here. Your story is compelling here.” The original plan was to never be in it. Then I conceded, alright, well I’ll be in it as much as Bing Liu is in MINDING THE GAP, right, which is an amazing documentary that I love. And I thought his story really anchors that movie in a beautiful way, it makes sense, and he’s in it sparingly, and I really admire that. Maybe we’d try something like that. And then you get the note twenty times, fifty times: “Sav, we need more of you in this. We need more of you in this.” You’ve assembled this brilliant team of people who know what they’re talking about, like Lela, like Alex [Schmider], like Matthew [Mills], like Carrie [Radigan], like Sharika [Ajaikumar] our editor, like Lauren [Devlin] our AE and they’re all saying “This doesn’t work if you’re not in it more.” Then you just have to listen, otherwise you’re not telling the best version of the story. I didn’t want to preserve a part of myself, pre-transition, that I’d wished that people would forget. It’s not easy, even as press is coming out, seeing the stills that people choose, and saying “Ugh, why that shot? Why that shot?”
EM - Right? Even the poster!
SR - Even the poster! Gosh, in my mind I’ve always looked like this. In my mind, this is the person that I’ve always been, and in some ways this is the person I’ve always been. I mean, we’ve seen me grow up in some ways but I’ve always been myself, right? So of course I didn’t want to be in it. But at the end of the day there’s a choice, a delicate balance between myself as a filmmaker and director and myself as a human being and I had to find the version of this film that worked best with both versions of myself, both sections of my personality. I’m very thankful to have had the guidance to make that decision in a way where I felt safe and taken care of by the rest of this team. Including Lela, who runs an organization called Mama Film, and is very protective, and is like the Mom of the film, as she said at the Q&A last night.
EM - I love it!
LMC - I was so into your answer that I forgot what the question was.
SR - Why am I in it?
LMC - Yeah, it was a hard decision for you to make but, again, I think the extra time allowed for conversations with the team, and I know that you and Alex talked a lot about it. I remember a year ago Alex and I were talking to you about and saying you could put yourself in the movie and then you never have to tell this story again. You know, you’ve put it out there. And thinking back to some of the original grants and cuts from way back in the beginning, there was more about your transition, and I think this movie is so much better for not focusing on that.
SR - One hundred percent.
LMC - For telling the story that it tells. That Sav happens to be a trans man is just happenstance within this story.
EM - Yeah, it’s a very quick moment, it kind of mostly happens offscreen, and I like that it’s not sensationalized, like “LOOK AT THIS!” It’s not the crux of the film, it’s your story, it’s you. It’s not really the point.
SR - No, it’s not. I do not seek attention in that way, pretty much at all in my life. I like to mind my own business. Hang out with Riley and the pugs.
LMC - Play Pokemon.
SR - Play Pokemon. Play video games, hang out with my friends, and keep a relatively low profile. I think one of the things that really made me not want to be in the film is that this is so self-aggrandizing. This is so eye-rolling. I mean, we’ve all seen documentaries where the documentarian is in it way too much and it doesn’t make sense. Unquestionably there will be people who feel that about this movie and I can’t control how they feel about it. But we did our damnedest to make sure that every second that I was in it, it made sense. Even up until the end, they were telling me “Sav, we should see your reaction here. Come on, now.” I’m very lucky to have good people around me, the best collaborators in the world.
EM - I think an even more soul-baring decision, and one you didn’t come to lightly, I’m sure, was putting Riley in the film. How did that come about?
SR - You know, she’s just game for anything. She’s so cool. I don’t think - I might get emotional about this - I don’t think I could accurately tell the story of me coming of age without talking about her. I made the decision to earnestly pursue filmmaking, and not just something I would do someday, but to earnestly pursue it the month before we started dating. Then we started dating and my life continued to change. Even before we were dating, we were friends, and she has been with me through every step of this process in a way that I will never be able to thank her for enough. She’s just cool and down for anything, so when I say, hey, look, I have to be in this. I think it makes sense for you to be in this, too. Are you down for that? And she said “I don’t know what that means but sure.” So I explained it more and she’s like “Okay, so you’re just going to film us doing B-roll?” and I said yep. She said “And you’re going to interview me?” and I said yep, and she said cool. She was just game for anything that I wanted to do, including the thing I didn’t want to do, which was the final interview. I knew I had to do it as a director, but as a person, I was like, I’m exhausted from watching cuts of this. This is raw, this is vulnerable, this is difficult, and for her to be the person interviewing me at the end is the best version of the story. She’s just cool and wants to hang out with me as much as I want to hang out with her and I think that’s the explanation for how she got into it.
LMC - And there are so many parallels between the love story of Sav and Riley and the love story of Kevin and Joey, which didn’t have a happy ending, and having that love story in the film, it really is a love story in so many ways.
EM - I had a special connection with the story because I actually met my wife online, and we were talking online before we met and fell in love.
SR - How did you meet?
EM - On a diary site. Yeah, Diaryland, back in the day, you’d login and type “No one knows me. I’m the enigma.” and others could go “Like!” And they’d message and say “Oh, I like how you said ‘No one knows you.’” And we started chatting there, and then from there it went to MySpace - I’m old -, and she was in New Jersey and I was in San Diego, and she was visiting family in San Francisco and was like “Hey, that’s only like an eight hour drive - I’ll come see you.” And sparks and we’ve been together eighteen years now, married for twelve.
SR - Congratulations.
EM - So I had an “in” in the film, I was able to see myself in the film.
SR - That’s beautiful.
EM - Yeah, it works on so many levels. So tell me about filming the proposal.
SR - Oh my gosh. For context, we were already engaged. She had proposed to me in a Hard Rock Cafe with the song “Jolene” playing overhead. I'm a massive Dolly Parton fan - I got this tattoo as a result. We had been together so long and had made a pact, basically, not to get engaged until we were both done with college; well she took a lot longer to graduate than I did. And I was like “Well, ball’s in your court! I’m ready to get married. You just tell me when.” Then she proposed in a Hard Rock Cafe and then her mom passed away and we didn’t see each other for almost nine months. That’s what you see in the film with us meeting at the airport. So when she’s giving me shit about her not having a ring it’s because I hadn’t seen her in nine months, and I was just waiting for her to come back and I was so excited. So I thought if we’re going to do this, let’s do it big. She loves New York City, she loves Times Square, for whatever reasons I don’t understand. And I was like “Alright, you did it to my favorite song in a kitschy place that I think is super fun. So let’s go, let’s party.” I was supposed to give her the ring the night of the interview but we got rained out, so I look at the camera I’m really looking at the camera operator like “Yeah, my plans that are ruined. Yup!”
EM - This is happening!
SR - Yes, it’s happening, if she’ll just give me a second. She’s been in town for like three days, we’re waiting to film it so it’s special, but we tried to keep it casual. So I was like, okay, we’re just going to film some b-roll in New York City. She’s already used to me saying we need to shoot some b-roll, we might use it, we might not. So we sit on the ticket steps, or however you say it, and you can see in the movie, the ring is burning a hole in my pocket.
EM - Oh, absolutely. It’s broadcast from a hundred miles away. I was like, there’s a ring right there.
SR - I’m so nervous, because I want this to be special, but also, I’m being filmed, and I don’t want to be filmed. I’m uncomfortable, but I have to be filmed, because again this is the director part of my brain winning out over the person who would like some privacy. But, again, this is all my fault, right? So I pull out the ring, some drunk ladies came up next to us and were like “Oh my God!” It was so funny, we didn’t have that movie. There were some cheers when I said “She said yes!” and it was just a lovely moment. I got to just spend some time with her and make her as happy as she’d made me almost a year prior.
EM - So this film is going to start a lot of conversations, and rightfully so. You said something earlier that I picked up on about seeing yourself in your earlier incarnation. Seeing yourself the way that you never really saw yourself on camera. What is the conversation that one has about that former life? How do you frame it?
SR - That’s a good question. [pause] I’ve always been myself.
EM - Right.
SR - As soon as I was able to articulate how I wanted to dress, my mom let me dress how I wanted. I’ve been pretty much exactly like this my whole life. There were periods of time when I tried to appear more feminine to survive. I know that sounds dramatic but it was really just to get people to stop picking on me and leave me alone. Again, I don’t seek that kind of attention. I just didn’t have the language for it until I was an adult, to say “Yeah, you are a guy, just like you always thought you were.” So when I see that, I basically see a prepubescent version of myself, with a baby face and the round cheeks. And that’s how I see myself, as I’m still coming of age. So the person that you see sitting here before you is the version of myself where I’ve had the opportunity to work on myself and express who I am.
LMC - Come into your adulthood.
SR - And breathe a little easier. And that’s how I look at it, like “Aww, that’s a nice kid. Hope he does good.”
[We’re told this next will be the last question.]
SR - Last question? I’m sorry, we’re chatty.
EM - No, I love chatting!
SR - Oh good. You’re in the right profession.
EM - Yeah, see? This is actually only the second in-person interview I’ve ever done.
SR - Really?
EM - Yeah, most of my stuff is Zoom or phone calls, and I did like one at a convention pre-pandemic.
SR - Well, we are honored.
EM - Thank you, but the pleasure is mine. So you don’t want attention and you’re at one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. What’s next?
SR - Well, let me amend my statement: I love positive attention as a filmmaker. As a person in front of the camera I’ve never sought that out, so I’m grateful to have the safety with the people around me to make that feel like a fun thing instead of daunting. Sorry, could you repeat the rest of the question?
EM - What’s next?
SR - Well, I’m going to hang out with Lela a lot. We’re going to go to some film festivals, engage with audiences, hopefully we’re going to have fun and have more meaningful conversations about what this film means to people. Hopefully they dig it. Can’t say much about next projects with the writers’ strike, unfortunately, but I hope that the WGA gets everything that they’re asking for and more and that there’s a sustainable future for the business of storytelling. What about you, Lela?
LMC - Yeah, same with my future projects, but I really want this film to get a theatrical release. I want it to go to arthouses or cinemas or wherever, across the country and around the world. There’s something so special about seeing a movie like this with people and I think it deserves that and I’m so really hopeful that we have that opportunity. Says the President of the Arthouse Board.
CHASING CHASING AMY is a heartfelt examination of one person’s relationship with film that ultimately allows them to become themselves in a way that wasn’t immediately present elsewhere. It’s a testament to the impact that entertainment, particularly in terms of representation and visibility, can have on its viewers. People need to see themselves reflected in their screens, and that kind of diversity and inclusivity is crucial to fostering personal growth in the most marginalized of us. Kevin Smith is a huge part of the film, and the way he makes himself available to Sav is inspiring and often unseen in the cutthroat industry of film, so it’s a particular delight. Fans of CHASING AMY will enjoy this film, as will those who derided its more ignorant misgivings and missteps in execution. It gives ample historical perspective to the film’s creation and reception, and offers a startlingly honest and transparent perspective on the sincerity behind it, both from the filmmaker and the talent behind it. Ultimately, what CHASING CHASING AMY offers viewers is a deeply personal tale of identity, acceptance, and support. Sav Rodgers’s story is important, crucial, and timely. I appreciated his openness with me but even more so with the audience at large in what he’s created with this moving and immediate film. You can keep track of the film through its primary website chasingamydoc.com and find screenings around the world, and with a little luck and a lot of promotion it can find the worldwide distribution it so rightly deserves so that it can be shown in theaters for all to see.
Until next time, be fearlessly you.
-McEric, aka Eric McClanahan-
