Dear Jesse
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Dear Jesse is a 1998 American documentary film by Tim Kirkman that was released theatrically by Cowboy Pictures in 1998. The film explores the gay filmmaker's return home to a small North Carolina town against the backdrop of the senator's 1996 re-election campaign. Kirkman travels across the state on a quest to find out why voters keep electing Mr. Helms to the U.S. Senate, believing that the citizens of his home state can't possibly agree with his stance on many issues, including his notoriously anti-gay positions. Kirkman's own parallels and differences between himself and Jesse Helms are also examined: they're from the same town and college, with media interests, from families blessed by adoptions, Baptists by upbringing and, as Kirkman says, “For most of his more than 24 years in the U.S. senate, Helms has been obsessed with homosexual men. For most of my adult life, so have I.” Kirkman interveiws members of his family, college friends, his pastor, Helms foes and fans, community activists, novelists Lee Smith and Allan Gurganus, openly gay Carrboro mayor Mike Nelson, and people in the street, including a brief interview with Matthew Shepard, then a student at Catawba College. Produced by Mary Beth Mann, Dear Jesse was edited by Joe Klotz, with music by John Crooke and cinematography by Norwood Cheek. 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. After the film aired on the HBO/Cinemax “Reel Life” series, Kirkman was nominated for an Emmy Award (Documentary Writing Category).