Thursday, June 6, 6:30 p.m.
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Presented as the first of four events in the Figge Art Museum's Free Film at the Figge series, the award-winning 2022 documentary Jimmy in Saigon enjoys a June 6 screening in the Davenport venue's John Deere Auditorium, the work lauded by Film Carnage as "a loving, engaging, and sympathetic story," and by the Chicago Tribune as a documentary that "has the feel of a detective story. It will grab you."
Winner of the Audience Award at Chicago's Reeling Film Festival and the Jury Award at Amsterdam's Roze Filmdagen, Jimmy in Saigon begins as a personal exploration into the mysterious death and radical life of Jimmy McDowell, an American 24-year-old Vietnam veteran who died as a civilian in Saigon in 1972, when Jimmy's brother, filmmaker Peter McDowell, was only five. While investigating Jimmy’s drug use and sexuality, Peter takes audiences from the U.S. Midwest to Vietnam, France, and back home again, and in his quest to get to know his brother, he uncovers a hidden romance, new family ties, and a remarkable global love story.
Surrounded by opera as a child and trained as a musician and actor, Jimmy in Saigon director Peter McDowell has always been drawn to melding story, image, and sound in his own stage and film productions. Born and raised in Champaign, Illinois, he produced opera professionally in Chicago from 1999-2006; prior to that, he made two Super 8 short films that were shown at San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival. One of those shorts, I Dream of Dorothy, went on to festivals worldwide. In addition to filmmaking, McDowell works as a fundraiser, publicist, and a teacher of fundraising, which has helped him bridge the creative aspects of filmmaking with the more managerial aspects essential for production.
McDowell recently served as Director of Development for American Friends of the Louvre, and is the recipient of a highly competitive three year DeVos Institute for Arts Management International Fellowship at the University of Maryland. In 2018, he was also the recipient of a Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Individual Artists Program grant for Jimmy in Saigon, and in 2020, McDowell won a California Humanities Council grant, also for this film. He currently resides in Los Angeles and runs his own firm, Peter McDowell Arts Consulting, currently teaching fundraising workshops for filmmakers and other artists.
Jimmy in Saigon will be screened at the Davenport venue on June 6, admission to the 6:30 p.m. documentary showing is free, and audiences are invited to discuss the film afterward over a complimentary glass of wine. For more information on June's Free Film at the Figge series, call (563)326-7804 and visit FiggeArtMuseum.org.
