By Kelcie McKenney

Director Sav Rodgers’ documentary Chasing Chasing Amy is coming to select theaters on November 1st. 

The theater release comes just over a year after debuting at Tribeca Film Festival in June 2023 and an award-filled stretch on the festival circuit—Best Documentary at FilmOut San Diego, 2023 Popcorn List Selection at Festival Favorite Films, and Grand Jury Prize Winner at Hell’s Half Mile Film & Music Festival, to name a few amidst the 76 different festival showing.

We admittedly cannot shut up about Sav Rodgers or his acclaimed documentary Chasing Chasing Amy. For good reason. We spoke with Sav July of last year about his four-year process of making the documentary. 

Chasing Chasing Amy explores the polarizing reputation of Kevin Smith’s 1997 cult classic Chasing Amy among the LGBTQ+ community. Sav first watched it at 12 years old, and it was the first movie he saw that included LGBTQ+ characters that were good, intelligent, funny, and out—desperately needed representation for a pre-teen in Kansas. But while that representation meant so much to a pre-teen in Kansas, the queer community has mixed feelings—which is explored in the film via interviews between director Sav and Kevin Smith, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Lee, Guinevere Turner, and more. 

“Having spent years defending my love for CHASING AMY to fellow members of the queer community, I began to explore how multiple things can be true at once,” says Sav. “This movie that saved my life also holds a complicated and controversial history in queer film canon. I’m not seeking to change anyone’s mind with this film, but to recognize the importance of engaging in dialogue around different perspectives and understanding where and why they come about—be it personal, cultural, or historical.”

And while those conversations bring about a new lens to review a complex piece of queer media, what truly sings in Chasing Chasing Amy is Sav’s exploration of his own identity as he processes his connection to the film. As a transgender man, Chasing Amy played a role in his coming out and transition—and we get to watch Sav as he processes that. It’s vulnerable, raw, and moving.

“By including my personal story (at least a part of it) in the film, I hope that Chasing Chasing Amy can offer hope to anyone experiencing life’s struggles that can feel permanent and impossible. In my experience, nothing is,” says Sav. “My journey of transition, in tandem with reconciling my relationship with Chasing Amy is illustrative of the power of story and its life-saving responsibility and capabilities—coincidental or otherwise.”

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