How an Absent Father, a Facebook Doppelgänger and Barbie Ferreira’s Baby Pictures Helped Create SXSW Film ‘Bob Trevino Likes It’
variety.comSelome Hailu Writer-director Tracie Laymon has a lot of Bobs in her life. First, there was Bob Laymon, her father. “In 2012, I was looking for my dad,” she says. “He would just feel disrespected for even the most minor infractions, and he’d disappear for a year or two and not talk to me.
So I put his name into Facebook and saw this little tiny picture. I friended him and woke up to ‘Bob Laymon likes it.’ I was like, ‘My dad likes something of mine!
We’re back! It’s gonna be okay.'” It wasn’t okay yet. This was a second Bob Laymon. “It was a stranger in Wichita, Kansas,” Laymon says, “who continued to be more fatherly to me than my dad ever was — he filled the void.
He had such access to my heart because of his name. My dad never wrote me happy birthday, but [on Facebook], I’d get ‘Bob Laymon says “Happy birthday!” My dad never came to my screenings, but I’d get an award, and it’s: ‘Bob Laymon says, “Way to go, kiddo!”‘” Laymon never met the man she calls Facebook Bob in real life, but imagining what it might look like if she had helped her to write “Bob Trevino Likes It,” a film starring Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo that’s competing in SXSW‘s 2024 narrative feature competition.
Read more on variety.com