Dear Ike: Lost Letters to a Teen Idol (2021)

In the feature-length animated documentary "Dear Ike: Lost Letters to a Teen Idol" Los Angeles filmmaker Dion Labriola recounts his all-consuming childhood quest to contact his teen idol, Ike Eisenmann (of Walt Disney's "Escape to Witch Mountain" fame). Growing up in the industrial midwestern town of Akron, Ohio, wasn't always easy for a gay teenager with artistic interests, so Dion often escaped into a world of creatures and characters which he had created for a science fiction novel that he was writing. His plans soon evolved into developing that story into an animated film, and his dream was that Ike Eisenmann would one day star in it. Dion's obsessive attempts to convey those ideas to Ike are retold through animated reenactments (created by Dion himself), as well as interviews with his childhood friends. Several of them were actually interviewed at their teenage alma mater, Roswell Kent Junior High, in Akron Ohio, which closed its doors for the final time just days later. The story is also told through the words of the teenaged-Dion himself, from actual diary entries and letters written to Ike at the time (voiced by newcomer, Talon Bohn). Although the two teenagers never made contact, Dion fortunately held on to all of his mementos from those years, so that decades later, when the story finally reached a surprising resolution, he could bring all of it to life in "Dear Ike".