She was an R&B star who eclipsed the likes of Etta James and Little Richard. She was a trans soul singer named Jackie Shane and throughout the 1960’s she shattered barriers with her raw talent, courage and a musical talent that was unrivalled.
Then, in 1971, she simply disappeared from the music scene.
Now, Victoria-raised producer and co-founder of Banger Films, Sam Dunn, is bringing Jackie Shane’s story back to life with the release of his film Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, to be released nationwide next month and at the Vic Theatre on Aug. 16.
“It was Michael Mabbott, one of the directors of the film who should be credited with bringing this story to life,” Dunn said. “He was obsessed with Jackie’s story, and no one knew where she’d gone. But he searched until he found her and, over time, befriended her.”
Mabbott did indeed become Shane’s friend and recorded many hours of conversations with her to discover the story behind her disappearance.
“He learned that she’d grown tired of living the life that she had to live as a trans woman … living a life where she couldn’t be herself,” said Dunn.
“We spoke once a week, usually on Fridays. She intentionally and thoughtfully unfolded her story like an audition to determine, ‘How are you going to react to this?’ or, ‘Can you handle this?’ It was like an essay on her life that she was building layer by layer to make sure that the person she was telling it to was hearing it in the right way,” said Mabbott.
“She wanted her story to be told, and I wanted to listen. A lot of the film is based on recordings of those conversations. That year of my life is still the greatest honour I’ve ever had.”
According to Dunn, Mabbott had almost convinced Shane to return to the stage and she had begun to grant interviews in which she said that she would soon return for a performance in Toronto.
That performance never took place as she died in her sleep on February 21, 2019.
“This is not just a story of a person who went missing, it’s also a story of a tremendous artist who never got her full due.”
The film tells that story in Shane’s own unmistakable voice and, using never before heard phone conversations, dazzling animation and an original score by Murray Lightburn.
To date, Any Other Way has won the Out in the Silence Award at the Frameline International LGBTQ+ Film Festival in San Francisco as well as the DGC Special Jury Prize – Canadian Feature Documentary at Hot Docs, where it was also a Top 10 Audience Favourite. The film currently has a 100 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes (as of July 23, 2024).
Bringing the film to Victoria has special meaning for Dunn as he was raised in the city, attended Vic High School, and earned his degree at UVic.
Since that time, he’s directed and produced several award-winning music documentaries and series, including films on Rush, Alice Cooper, Iron Maiden and ZZ Top, as well as the Emmy- and Peabody-winning Netflix series Hip-Hop Evolution.
More recently, Dunn was executive producer on the Canadian Screen Award-winning documentary, Sex with Sue, and has directed shows for Paramount+ and A&E. Along with his business partner Scot McFadyen, Sam has helped grow Banger Films into one of the world’s pre-eminent documentary production companies.
