Dear Zachary: A
Letter to a Son About His Father is a 2008 American documentary film written, produced, edited and directed by
Kurt Kuenne. The film is about
Kuenne's close friend Andrew Bagby,
who was murdered after Bagby ended a relationship with a woman named Shirley Jane Turner. Shortly after she
was arrested as a suspect, Turner announced that she was pregnant with Bagby's
child, a boy she named Zachary.
Kuenne decided to interview numerous relatives, friends, and
associates of Andrew Bagby and
incorporate their loving remembrances into a film that would serve as a
cinematic scrapbook for the son who never knew him. Kuenne has stated that Dear Zachary began as a project only to
be shown to friends and family of Andrew
Bagby. However, as the events unfolded, Kuenne decided to release the film
publicly.
Dear Zachary
premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival
in 2008 and received a limited theatrical release before being acquired for
distribution by MSNBC. It has
received generally positive reviews and has been noted for its editing and
emotional weight. In 2010, after watching the documentary, MP Scott Andrews introduced Bill
C-464 (also known as "Zachary's
Bill") to the Parliament of
Canada. The bill, which helps protect children in relation to bail hearings
and custody disputes, was signed into law. Kuenne is donating all profits from
the film to a scholarship established in the names of Andrew and Zachary Bagby.
Synopsis
Kurt Kuenne and Andrew Bagby grew up as close friends
in the suburbs of San Jose, California,
and Bagby frequently appeared in Kuenne's home movies. As these movies became
more professional in quality in later years, Bagby invested in them with money
he had saved up for medical school. While studying in Newfoundland, Canada, Bagby began a relationship with Shirley Turner, a twice-divorced
general practitioner thirteen years his senior. Bagby's parents, friends, and
associates were uneasy about the relationship because of what they saw as
Turner's off-putting behavior. Turner moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, while Bagby worked as a resident in family
practice in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
In November 2001, as the relationship began to crumble,
Turner became increasingly possessive. Bagby broke up with her and put her on a
plane to Iowa. Turner drove almost
1,000 miles back to Pennsylvania overnight,
and asked Bagby to meet her at Keystone
State Park. Bagby was found dead the following day, face down, with five
gunshot wounds. When Turner learned she
was a suspect in the murder investigation, she fled to St. John's, Newfoundland. As the legal drama unfolded, Kuenne began
collecting footage from his old home movies and interviewed Bagby's parents, David and Kathleen, for a documentary
about his life.
After she reached St.
John's, Shirley Turner revealed
that she was pregnant with Bagby's child. While her extradition was pending,
Turner was not held in custody; she gave birth to a boy she named Zachary. Bagby's parents moved to Canada to gain custody of Zachary and to obtain Turner's
rendition for a trial in the U.S.. However,
the extradition process was repeatedly prolonged by Turner's lawyers based on
legal technicalities. When a provincial court ruled that enough evidence
pointed to Turner as Bagby's killer, she was put in jail and Bagby's parents, David and Kathleen, were awarded
custody of Zachary. Meanwhile,
Kuenne traveled across the U.S. and
the United Kingdom to interview
Bagby's friends and extended family. Kuenne also went to Newfoundland and visited Zachary
in July 2003.
In jail, Turner wrote to a judge and, contrary to normal
legal procedure received advice on how to appeal her arrest and imprisonment.
Turner was later released by a Newfoundland
judge, Gale Welsh, who felt she
did not pose a threat to society in general. Turner was therefore released on
bail and successfully sued for joint custody of Zachary with the Bagbys, although their arrangement was tenuous.
The arrangement ended in tragedy when, on August 18, 2003, Turner jumped into
the Atlantic Ocean with
thirteen-month-old Zachary in a
murder–suicide. David and Kathleen
were left dumbfounded and grief-stricken. Kuenne's attempts to arrange
interviews with the prosecutors and judges who facilitated Turner's freedom
were rebuffed.
Distraught over Zachary's
death, and outraged at the Canadian legal
system's failure to protect the child, David
and Kathleen mounted a campaign to reform the country's bail laws, which
they believed had helped allow Turner to kill her child and herself. A panel
convened by Newfoundland's Ministry of
Justice agreed, releasing a report stating that Zachary's death had been preventable and that the government's
handling of Turner's case had been inadequate. Turner's psychiatrist was found
guilty of misconduct for having helped her post bail, and the director of Newfoundland's child welfare agency
resigned. David Bagby wrote a best-selling book about his family's ordeal
during the saga. Kuenne finished his documentary and dedicated it to the memory
of both Bagby and his son; the film ends with the Bagbys and their relatives,
friends, and colleagues reflecting on the father and son, as well as the impact
that Kate and David had on all of them.
Release
Dear Zachary was submitted to the Toronto International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival but was rejected by both. It premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in January 2008. It was screened at Cinequest Film Festival, South
by Southwest, the Hot Docs Canadian
International Documentary Festival, the Sarasota
Film Festival, the Sidewalk Moving
Picture Festival, the Calgary
International Film Festival, and the Edmonton
International Film Festival, among others, before receiving a limited
theatrical release in the United States,
opening in one city at a time in select metropolitan areas. It was broadcast by
MSNBC on December 7, 2008, and has
been repeated several times since.
Critical reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Dear Zachary has an approval rating
of 94% based on 51 reviews, with an average rating of 8.11/10. The site's
critical consensus reads: "Dear
Zachary is both a touching tribute to a fallen friend and a heart-wrenching
account of justice gone astray, skillfully put to film with no emotion spared."
On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100,
based on 11 critic reviews, indicating "universal
acclaim".
Peter Debruge of
Variety called the film "a virtuoso
feat in editing" and noted, "The
way Kuenne presents the material, with an aggressive style that lingers less
than a second on most shots, it's impossible not to feel emotionally
exhausted."
Martin Tsai of
the New York Sun said the film "has so many unexpected developments
that it plays like a first-rate thriller... and the film is so unsettling that
it will stay with viewers for a long time. Like The Thin Blue Line, Dear
Zachary borrows some narrative dramatic tricks, and they pay off remarkably
well. It's hands down one of the most mind-blowing true-crime movies in recent
memory, fiction or nonfiction."
The National Board of
Review of Motion Pictures named the film one of the five top documentaries
of the year. Among those who named it one of the best films of 2008 were Time Out Chicago, The Oregonian, the Times
Herald-Record, Slant Magazine,
and WGN Radio Chicago. The website Film School Rejects place the film in third place in their 30 Best Films of the Decade list.
Awards and
nominations
The Chicago Film
Critics Association nominated the film for Best Documentary. The Society
of Professional Journalists presented it with its Sigma Delta Chi Award for Best
Television Documentary (Network), it received the Special Jury and Audience Awards at the Cinequest Film Festival, it was named an Audience Favorite at Hot Docs, it received the Audience Awards at the St. Louis International Film Festival and
the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival,
it was named Best Documentary at the
Orlando Film Festival and was awarded the jury award for best
international documentary at Docville
(Belgium).
Impact
On March 23, 2010, Bill
C-464 (also known as "Zachary's
Bill") was introduced by MP
Scott Andrews of Avalon to the Parliament of Canada. Andrews was moved to create the bill after
attending a screening of the film. The
goal of Zachary's Bill was to protect
children and force "judicial decision-makers" to keep the safety of children in mind during bail
hearings and in custody disputes, particularly when a child is in the custody
of someone who has been charged with a "serious
crime". Seven years after Zachary's
death and over two years after the film was released, "Zachary's Bill" was signed into law.
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