Looking for Jimmy - 2002

Looking for Jimmy is the first movie Julie Delpy wrote and directed in 2001. It lasts 80 minutes and tells the story of a French girl called Al living in Los Angeles who organizes a barbecue party at her place to celebrate her friend V's birthday. V's best friend Jimmy, who is also Al's boyfriend, has disappeared, so they decide to go look for him throughout the city. The movie is about their 24 hours "hunt".

One of the particularities of the movie is that it was filmed in real-time in LA streets, and the camera only stopped shooting when its batteries had to be changed. Moreover, Julie Delpy only shot the movie with friends of her: Emily Wagner as V, Billy Wirth as Billy and Tara Subkoff. She also respected the rules of the 1995 avant-garde filmmaking movement Dogme95 forgetting about the use of elaborate special effects or technology and concentrating on traditional values of story, acting and theme. The movement's aim is to prove that a movie can be recognized for its quality without having depended on huge Hollywood budgets. Thus, Julie's budget for this movie was only of 5000 dollars.