Filmmaker Statement

For years as an ad executive in Toronto and New York, I delivered the annual ‘Pride Presentation’ to clients outlining how police mistreatment led to the June ’69 Stonewall Uprising. After another rote delivery in June ’20 -- albeit over Zoom for the first time, affording me solitary moments in which to reflect afterwards -- I asked myself: what DID happen to Queer people victimized by discriminatory practices in the pre-Stonewall era? Research led me to discover historical figures history books ignore, like Walter Jenkins: a U.S. President’s closest confidante was gay, and banished for it? How did I, a forty-year old purported LGBTQ+ history buff, not already know that? If I didn’t know Walter’s story, and other stories like his, mass audiences wouldn’t either. So, I did something I’d never done before: I wrote about it. I wrote, recorded, and published a podcast called ALL THE BOYS that re-introduced Walter and other would-be Queer luminaries whose arrests on ‘morals charges’ outed them and unfairly defined their legacies. I FOIA’d documents and interviewed folks who knew them. I loved writing it. Then, I thought: if I can write a podcast, could I write a movie? For the Feature I wrote, The Black List and Warby Parker awarded me The Writers' Vision Grant to produce the Short. I can now proudly share that resulting Short, "Not Walter Jenkins!", with the world.