Dear Jesse is a 1998

1998 in film

-Events:* February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein.* Former child star Gary Coleman is charged with assaulting a young female bus driver at a California shopping mall.-Top grossing films:...

 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 by Tim Kirkman

Tim Kirkman

Writer and director Tim Kirkman was born on November 2, 1966 in Monroe, North Carolina, the third child of a public school educator and a music teacher, and spent his childhood in nearby Wingate, North Carolina....

 that was released theatrically by Cowboy Pictures in 1998.

Using a first-person narrative style in the form of a "letter" to Senator

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 Jesse Helms

Jesse Helms

Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. was a five-term Republican United States Senator from North Carolina who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001...

 (R-NC), the filmmaker explores the parallels and differences between himself — an openly

Coming out

Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....

 gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 man — and the staunchly anti-gay rights public servant. The film also features interviews with Helms' foes and fans, community activists, novelists Lee Smith

Lee Smith (author)

Lee Smith is an American fiction author who typically incorporates much of her home roots in the Southeastern United States in her works of literature. She has received many writing awards, such as the O. Henry Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, and the North...

 and Allan Gurganus

Allan Gurganus

Allan Gurganus is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose work is often influenced by and set in his native North Carolina. His writing has been compared to the work of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, who also were identified with the American South.-Biography: Gurganus was...

, openly gay Carrboro mayor Mike Nelson, and people in the street, including a brief interview with Matthew Shepard

Matthew Shepard

Matthew Wayne Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and murdered near Laramie, Wyoming, in October 1998...

, then a student at Catawba College

Catawba College

Catawba College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in Salisbury, North Carolina, USA. Founded in 1851 by the North Carolina Classis of the Reformed Church in Newton, the college adopted its name from its county of origin, Catawba County, before moving to its current home of Salisbury...

.

Production

Dear Jesse was produced by Mary Beth Mann and executive produced by Gill Holland

Gill Holland

John Gill Holland, Jr. , better known as Gill Holland, is a Norwegian-American award winning film producer and co-developer of The Green Building in Louisville, Kentucky.-Background:...

. It was edited by Joe Klotz

Joe Klotz

Joe Klotz is an American film editor. A graduate of Syracuse University, Klotz fell into the film editing industry while trying to pay off student loans. After editing for local commercials, news stations, and television shows in New York City he moved into the world of film editing...

, with music by John Crooke and cinematography by Norwood Cheek

Norwood Cheek

Norwood Cheek is a filmmaker and has directed many music videos for bands such as Superchunk, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Ben Folds Five, AFI, Toenut, 12 Stones, French Kicks, the Donnas, Soul Coughing and many others. He directed an episode of the USA Networks GvsE and has made commercials for X-Large...

.

Awards and nominations

In 1998, the film won the Audience Award at Frameline, the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and was named Best Documentary of the Year (Runner-Up) by the Boston Society of Film Critics

Boston Society of Film Critics

The Boston Society of Film Critics is an organization of film reviewers from Boston, Massachusetts, United States, based publications.The BSFC was formed in 1981 to make "Boston's unique critical perspective heard on a national and international level by awarding commendations to the best of the...

. After the film aired on the HBO/Cinemax “Reel Life” series, Kirkman was nominated for an Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

(Documentary Writing Category).