
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
Kurt Kuenne sets out to make a home movie for a baby who will never meet his father. Andrew Bagby, Kuenne's best friend since childhood, is murdered by his ex-girlfriend Shirley Turner in 2001, and Kuenne starts interviewing everyone who loved Andrew, from grade-school friends to his parents David and Kate Bagby, to build a portrait for the son Andrew never got to raise. Partway through filming, Turner announces she is pregnant with that son, Zachary, and the project turns into something else: a legal fight over custody, extradition, and bail that plays out in Newfoundland courtrooms while Zachary is placed in his killer's care. Kuenne's rapid-fire editing and his own narration carry real anger, and the film does not pretend to neutrality about what happens to the Bagbys. Home video, news clips, and courtroom footage build toward an ending that reshapes everything before it. What starts as a tribute becomes a record of a family fighting a justice system that keeps failing them.