Interview with Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne
Kurt Kuenne, director of the award-winning documentary Dear Zachary: a letter to a son about his father, discusses this highly personal film about the murder of his childhood friend and what he learned in the process.
Dear Zachary synopsis:
On the evening of Nov. 5, 2001, Dr. Andrew Bagby, 28, was murdered in a parking lot in western Pennsylvania. The prime suspect, his ex-girlfriend Dr. Shirley Turner, promptly fled the United States for St. John's, Newfoundland -- where she announced that she was pregnant with Andrew's child. She named the little boy Zachary. Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne, Andrew's childhood friend, originally began this film as a way for little Zachary to learn about his father. But when Shirley Turner was allowed to walk free on bail in Canada and given custody of Zachary while awaiting extradition to the United States, the film's focus shifted to Zachary's grandparents, David & Kathleen Bagby, and their desperate efforts to win custody of the boy.
Commitment spoke with Kurt Kuenne, Dear Zachary's director, writer and composer - and childhood friend of Andrew.
Commitment: Dear Zachary is the true, heart-wrenching story of your close friend Dr. Andrew Bagby who was murdered by his ex-girlfriend, Dr. Shirley Turner. Soon after the murder, Shirley Turner fled to her native Canada where she announced that she was pregnant with Andrew's son, whom she later named Zachary. Despite the seriousness of her crime, Shirley Turner was allowed to remain free on bail while she fought extradition to the U.S. In addition, the Canadian government allowed her to retain custody of Zachary. What was your goal in making this film?
Kurt Kuenne: I began this project with no intention of ever releasing it to the general public. Within 24 hours of getting the news of Andrew's murder, I made a decision to put together some kind of a memorial for family and friends to have as a keepsake of Andrew. I had known Andrew since the age of 6, and he had appeared in my movies from early childhood all the way up through college - and I still had all the raw footage tapes from those movies, not to mention all the home video I'd shot at family functions over the years. So by definition, that made me the keeper of the greatest archive of footage of Andrew that existed, and I therefore saw it as my responsibility to put something together for family & friends. I then decided to expand upon that by interviewing everyone about their memories of him, and decided to use this project as an excuse to travel to all the far-flung corners of the world where he had affected people and meet the ones I'd only heard about from him over the years. While preparing this project, the news came forth that Shirley - Andrew's murderer, who was walking free on bail in Canada - was pregnant with his child. When I learned that news, the project took on a whole new meaning, as my footage was going to be the only way the little guy would ever be able to see his father walk & talk…and my project in general would be a gold mine for him. So I refocused my project to be specifically and principally for Zachary. After the events of August 2003, that option was lost to me, and for awhile I put the project away, wondering if I would ever finish it. Once Kate & David Bagby - Andrew's folks - began speaking out late 2003 against the Canadian government for allowing Shirley to walk free on bail with a first degree murder charge on her head, and began championing reform to their bail system, I began to realize that my film could be a very persuasive tool in getting legal change that could save lives in the future. While the film still retains its original structure and form - it's still a letter to Zachary about his father - its purpose in being released publicly was to gather support in changing Canada's bail laws in order to prevent a recurrence of this nightmare. The film is also being given annually to the recipients of the scholarship funds established in Andrew's memory at his hospital and medical school, so that the recipients can learn the story behind the award they are being given, and understand the pageant of which they are now a part.
Commitment: For you, as Andrew's childhood friend, what was the most frustrating part of this tragic story?
Kurt: The most frustrating part is that two people I love are dead, and that one of the two murders was entirely preventable had even one person in a position of power exercised some common sense and done their job right. Equally frustrating is the fact that two people I love dearly as second parents - Andrew's parents, Kate & David - have been left to live the remainder of the lives having had their entire bloodline annihilated, and that they still have to live with that every day, as do I.
Commitment: While making this film, you interviewed many people whose lives Andrew had touched - friends, relatives, colleagues. Did you learn anything about Andrew that surprised you?
Kurt: One of my favorite parts of the interview process was talking with Andrew's peers in the medical profession and hearing directly from other doctors about what an exceptional physician he was. You always want your friends to be great at what they do, but when it's not your area of expertise, you don't really know or have any basis to find out. So to hear directly from his colleagues about the esteem they had for his abilities - both on a clinical level and especially his manner in dealing with patients - was incredibly rewarding. One woman told me how Andrew had diagnosed her nephew's cancer, catching it in time to not only save his life, but to retain his ability to have children, which he now has. Once the movie started gaining public visibility, I received a letter from a young lady who believes she was the last patient he ever saw on the day he was murdered, and she told me about how only meeting Andrew for 15 minutes was a healing experience unlike any other she'd experienced in a doctor's office, as he was the first physician who ever truly listened to her and actually cared about her problems. The fact that this young lady was so affected by Andrew in a 15 minute visit that she tracked me down to write to me about it seven years later speaks volumes about the kind of doctor he was.
Commitment: Upon discovering that Shirley Turner was pregnant with their grandchild, Andrew's parents, Kate and David Bagby, left their home in California and moved across North America to Newfoundland where Shirley Turner was living, to be with their grandchild. In addition, in order to spend time with Zachary, they were forced to spend time with Shirley Turner, their son's murderer, while she retained custody of him. Were you surprised by their commitment to this child?
Kurt: Not in the least. Zachary was all that was left of Andrew, and it was obvious that they would have done anything for him, just as they would have for Andrew. But I honestly believe they would have done the same for any child that was within their sphere; Kate has become a child & youth advocate since all this transpired and is now stepping up to the plate for children who are non-relatives.
Commitment: Andrew's parents, Kate and David Bagby, experienced unfathomable loss, not just once, but twice in a short period of time. They are two incredibly strong people. What keeps them going?
Kurt: You'd have to ask them, but from what they've communicated to me, David is kept going by rage, and Kate is kept going by the desire to prevent the next Zachary and help other children. David said repeatedly at Q&As on the film festival circuit that yes, he is still as mad as he was on that screen about what happened, and he expects to be mad on his deathbed. His rage that this was allowed to happen fueled the writing of his book (Dance with the Devil: A Memoir of Murder & Loss by David Bagby, available from Amazon.com and other booksellers), and keeps him going in the quest for change. As mentioned above, Kate has become a Child & Youth Advocate in Northern California and has been working with various children since their return to California.
Commitment: To make this film, you travelled across the country and then to Newfoundland, in addition to making a trip to England, interviewing Andrew's friends, relatives and colleagues. How long did it take you to make Dear Zachary?
Kurt: I shot my first interview in August of 2002, and I put the finishing touches on the final cut in early January 2008, so it was 5 1/2 years from start to finish. I mostly worked on it in my spare time until September of 2006, at which point I moved it into the "full time" position on my schedule, and hammered away at it until it was finished.
Commitment: Dear Zachary contains clips of films you made when you and Andrew were kids. When did you first know you wanted to be a filmmaker?
Kurt: I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was about 4 years old, after seeing Star Wars. It sounds like a cliché, as all of my classmates at USC (in the film school) had that same answer, but it's the truth.
Commitment: Not only did you direct Dear Zachary, you wrote and produced it, and wrote the score! How did you develop so many skills?
Kurt: I've been writing, shooting, editing, scoring and doing the sound for my film projects continuously since I was a kid, so I guess when you continually do every aspect of a discipline over & over throughout your life, you hopefully grow better & better at all of its parts. (I began taking piano lessons in kindergarten or first grade, I'm not sure which, so my music training began about the same time I began writing & shooting films, if not before.) I did eventually study filmmaking at USC, where I also studied Scoring for Motion Pictures & Television at the USC Music School, which is where I learned orchestration and conducting. Every film I've ever made would be considered "low budget" by Hollywood standards, so when you have little to no money, you must learn to do things yourself or you will never finish a movie.
Commitment: Where can we learn more about Dear Zachary and your upcoming projects?
Kurt: Dear Zachary has a website - www.dearzachary.com - which we keep updated. The film pops up on MSNBC from time to time, and can be purchased on the website, on amazon.com, rented on Netflix, at Blockbuster and numerous other venues. We screened the film for Members of Canada's Parliament back in March, which got a small committee of Parliamentarians to begin drafting a bill for bail reform, and I was just informed this week that the bill will likely be introduced in the House of Commons sometime in September, so it is making progress on its intended goal. NBC's Dateline has produced a piece on the case, Dear Zachary and its effects which is currently scheduled to air August 21, 2009 - check your local listings to see if that date sticks. I don't yet have a website for myself, but I have a short film comedy series that has been playing festivals with much success in recent years, and some of the films can be seen on the web. The most popular in the series is called Validation, it stars TJ Thyne (star of Fox's Bones) and has been one of the highest rated films of all time on YouTube (where it has been seen over 2 million times) for much of this year. My previous documentary Drive-In Movie Memories is also available on DVD. I just finished directing a new feature film in June, once again starring TJ Thyne (who produced it with me), called Shuffle, which I'm currently editing; hopefully you'll be seeing that pop up at festivals and in release next year.
Kurt Kuenne is a filmmaker and composer of fiction and documentary films. He won a 2002 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for his screenplay "Mason Mule", while his screenplay "Explode" made the quarterfinals in the same year. An honors graduate of the USC School of Cinema-Television, Kuenne won the Harold Lloyd Scholarship in Film Editing, and in 1999, following the completion of his first feature (the teen drama "Scrapbook" starring Eric Balfour), he was named one of the top 25 new faces of indie film by Filmmaker magazine. He followed it with the documentary "Drive-In Movie Memories" (2001), which chronicled the outdoor moviegoing experience and played nationally on PBS. His popular short film comedy series - "Rent-A-Person" (2004), "Validation" (2006), "Slow" (2007) and "The Phone Book" (2008) - has cumulatively played more than 90 film festivals, winning more than 35 awards; "Validation". His documentary "Dear Zachary: a letter to a son about his father" was released theatrically by Oscilloscope Laboratories in the fall of 2008, is currently in rotation on MSNBC and is now available on DVD. He recently completed directing his feature script "Shuffle", starring TJ Thyne (star of the hit Fox show "Bones" and Kurt's short film "Validation"), and is currently in post-production. He is also currently working as composer and lyricist with author Frank Beddor, adapting Beddor's New York Times Bestseller "The Looking Glass Wars" into a musical for the stage.
To see a trailer of Dear Zachary, click here.
To purchase Dear Zachary on DVD, click here.
