Finding Shelter in Cinema: Chasing Chasing Amy
May 1, 2025
tweet
share
by Dylan Wachman
I walked into night one of 2024’s Charlotte Film Festival feeling that cool early Fall breeze, taking in the excitement of the room from all around me. I was seated for Chasing Chasing Amy–a documentary about Chasing Amy, a film I have not seen, and how its influence affected the life of filmmaker Sav Rodgers. I was enamored by it, because its not just a film about love of movies (something that everyone at a festival can relate to), but it was a film about identity, internal and external, our humanity, media, and how those things intertwine.
It’s rare that you get to watch a documentary that speaks to you, a film with such a vulnerability, and then be able to meet the filmmaker and subject you’ve been learning about for ninety-two minutes. Sav explained in the Q&A about how Chasing Amy was a bomb shelter for him growing up, and expressed to an audience in agreement about how, in some of the darkest times, certain media can shield us from the reality of our surroundings. Despite never seeing Chasing Amy, the sheer excitement from Sav and the documentary–which features Chasing Amy’s writer and director Kevin Smith, a more-than-willing participant in this examination of his own film–it brought me such an incredible joy to see this earnestness on screen.
In my world, the best films are the kinds that can inform and contextualize your own experiences, while also finding empathy and understanding for those around you. After the screening, I was having a Coca-Cola in the filmmaker lounge, and I was able to chat with Sav about this–about film, and the dangers of getting too close to the thing you love. I can’t imagine the micro-terrors of putting the thing you love under such a microscope, meeting all of the major players, and then making a documentary about it. Sometimes looking behind the curtain can ruin the magic, you know? Thankfully, Sav never even had to ponder any of this, because this documentary was a success. After screening at Charlotte Film Festival, it moved on to arthouse theaters and even the larger theater chains nationwide, and is sitting with a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Festivals are the venues of the unknown; where new ideas often come to light in front of audiences for the first time, filmmakers often completely unaware of the kinds of reactions they’ll receive. Being part of a film’s “launch” in this way is one of the most exciting things that you can do as a film lover or cinephile.
What stuck with me was how film can be a lifeline. I didn’t need to be familiar with Chasing Amy to understand how deeply it shaped Sav’s life. Even now, still not having seen the film, I left with something more valuable: a reminder of the ways movies can shape us–and for some, the impact is so profound, it demands a story of its own. That’s a kind of passion you don’t forget.
