Much Ado About Dying- A Gay Uncle's Dramatic Swan Song Documentary

The award winning documentary Much Ado About Dying has its US theatrical premiere March 15! Today we talk to filmmaker Simon Chambers. When Simon Chambers received an email from his elderly gay uncle — “I think I may be dying” — he took it as a summons. His Uncle David, a retired actor living alone in a cluttered, mouse-infested London house, was being dramatic. But a documentary film was born.

For the next five years, Simon both cared for and documented  Uncle David, through all his performative exuberance (acting out passages of Shakespeare), swings from boisterous humor to short temper, and physical/mental challenges.  Simon is present for it all and the film captures the impact on him as the gay nephew potentially witnessing his own future.

 Best Directing, International Competition at the 2022 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam Award winner, Simon taught disadvantaged teenagers in London for 14 years before turning his hand to films.  In 2006, with his first feature ‘Every Good Marriage Begins With Tears’, he realized that he had a knack for making the kind of documentaries that people want to watch.

With co-host Brody Levesque