A Seattle resident who grew up in Fayetteville is making big waves in her new role as movie producer.
Cassidy Dimon, a 29-year-old single artist and Fayetteville-Manlius graduate, has completed work on “Barzan,” a documentary about an Iraqi-American residing in Seattle who was accused of trying to bring terrorists into the country. A lot of it focuses on the man’s defense that he didn’t know he was harboring a terrorist and that he thought he was just doing a favor for some friends by bringing the person in.
“The goal was to present the evidence and let viewers decide if he’s guilty or not,” Dimon said in a phone interview last week.
For Dimon, the documentary is the culmination a harrowing time in her life and of her following her dream. She says she was “bogged down in the corporate model,” and decided she wanted to work for herself in the film industry.
The inspiration for “Barzan,” though, didn’t come until she was literally facing the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I was sitting in my dorm room watching television when we saw what was happening,” she said. “I turned around to look outside because my room faces the World Trade Center. I saw the chaos, everyone going nuts. People were crying and no one knew what was happening. So we decided to go on the building’s roof and that’s when I saw one of the towers collapse. There was smoke rising and coming our way. This had such a huge impact on my life.”
She said she became hyper-aware of her surroundings after that, and before she knew it, “we went directly into war.”
“I just grew up so much during that time,” she said.
It was shortly thereafter Dimon packed up her stuff, picked up her cousin from down south, and made her way across the country, seeing all she could see, taking in what was around her, before they made it to Seattle.
Shortly after arriving, she heard about what became the basis for the documentary. She was fascinated by all the angles: some thought the man was innocent, others drove hard for his conviction. She wouldn’t, however, say what she thought of the man.
“I’m a producer, so it’s my job to get everything together,” she said. “I have to get info, raise money, write grants, all that stuff, so I never really had too much time to think about it.”
While in the midst of all her work, she and three friends decided enough was enough, and they formed the company now known as The Last Quest. At first, it wasn’t a fruitful venture, but Dimon said as the group gains more knowledge, things get easier and, simply, better.
“I had been laid off from Microsoft, so I decided to go all-in,” she added. “And this is exactly why I do it, the feature full-length film. It’s what we set out to do.”
Dimon, who lived in New York City for eight years and graduated from Fordham University, is a self-proclaimed risk-taker, saying the move from Fayetteville down to the Bronx was a huge change that she ended up embracing.
And she’s not in a rush to speed her life along, saying she’s happy being single right now and isn’t out looking for Mr. Right.
She didn’t elaborate on any upcoming projects.
“We basically just want to work on the stuff we believe in,” she said.
If you want to check out some of Dimon’s work, visit YouTube and search for Mohai Minute and you’ll be able to view a bunch of short films she had a hand in producing.
For more info on the documentary and to view the trailer, visit barzanthemovie.com.
Neil Benjamin Jr. can be reached at [email protected].
