Conan Simmons

Pioneer of Outsider Cinema and New Primitive Cinema. He often takes on multiple roles both in front of and behind the camera. He is an independent/underground filmmaker who began as a production assistant in 1999 in the local Kansas City film scene. He became a self published film critic with the underground zine HyperActivate in 2002. On December 20, 1994 he was run over while waiting for a school bus. A van, whose occupants were allegedly asleep at the time, jumped the curb onto the sidewalk knocking him down where he was then caught up underneath the vehicle and dragged approximately 50 feet before the vehicle finally stopped. He still has the scars from this accident. The same intersection where this accident occurred is featured in a brief scene in Robert Altman's "Kansas City" during the election sequence, which was filmed several months after the accident occurred, and Conan revisited the accident scene to watch Robert Altman at work. Conan grew up just a few blocks from, and was briefly enrolled at, Northeast High School, where classic Hollywood actress Jean Harlow attended school.