Recipient of a 2021 JFI Completion Grant
Filmmaker and performer Jeremy Xido grew up in Detroit as the only white kid in his neighborhood, raised by neighbors who took him in when his parents were struggling. Twenty years ago, he left home and hasn’t gone back, haunted by something he left behind. Until now. Jeremy returns to the city to perform a stage piece he’s presented all over the world and to find out what happened to his childhood best friend, Boo. As he attempts to mount the show, his search for Boo takes over, unexpectedly thrusting him into the complex, painful, and beautiful history of the home and neighborhood he left behind. At turns funny and heartbreaking, Sons of Detroit is an urgently contemporary film about how our most intimate sense of self is forged within global patterns of history. By braiding documentary, narrative, and performance, the film looks at how the things we hide, even from ourselves, insist on being seen, spoken, and embraced.
Jeremy Xido graduated cum laude in Painting and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, NY and trained at the Actor's Studio. A Fulbright and Guggenheim recipient, he’s artistic co-director of performance/film company CABULA6, voted “company of the year 2009” by Ballettanz, and awarded “Outstanding Artist of the Year 2010” by the Austrian Ministry of the Arts. Jeremy's film directing credits include award winning feature documentary DEATH METAL ANGOLA, the six part “Crime Europe” series, and the short documentary “Macondo” in addition to several short fiction films. He’s known in Europe as a performance artist with a unique artistic voice and approach to stage and film, blending emotionally gripping personal stories with the larger social contexts within which they emerge - including the trilogy “The Angola Project” (premiere: Impulstanz, Vienna and PS122, NYC). Working as a dancer, actor and filmmaker, he has performed and presented work around the world on stage, TV and in Cinema. In addition to his work on SONS OF DETROIT, he is currently in development on a limited documentary series called THE BONES about the international dinosaur bone trade and is writing a feature film script set in Detroit amid the housing crisis of 2010.