Coinciding with last week’s Fan Expo Canada, The Movie Network and and Movie Central announced the premiere date for their new original documentary Fanarchy from director Donna Davies (Nightmare Factory) – the 90-minute original Canadian documentary explores this cultural transformation, putting a spotlight on the die-hard fans who risk life, limb, and financial bankruptcy in their quest to pay homage to the films and stories they love.
From remakes of Indiana Jones and recreations of Middle-earth, to Star Trek tributes and superheroes reimagined, the phenomenon known as fan films is rising and becoming a creative force in its own right, the network said. With fans no longer satisfied as passive consumers of content, and with affordable technology at their fingertips, they’re now producing more new content per month than studios and networks combined. Fanarchy uncovers this subculture, exposing the burgeoning fan film media landscape and the issues that potentially complicate it: copyright, intellectual property, and the concept of originality in a remix culture.
Featured in Fanarchy is the story of famed fan filmmaker Chris Strompolos, creator and star of the cult hit Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, a 1989 film shot by a group of teenagers that is now making headlines at fan conventions and film festivals around the world, and spurred the recent Jeremy Coon (Napoleon Dynamite)-directed documentary Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made. Also interviewed are: Vic Mignogna, creator and star of Star Trek Continues, a popular fan-produced web series shot in an expansive 18,500-square-foot studio that houses the largest, most complete Star Trek-inspired sets in the world; U.K. filmmaker Chris Bouchard, who helmed The Hunt For Gollum, an unofficial prequel to Lord of the Rings released for free with currently over 12.5 million views on YouTube; expert influencer Harry Knowles, founder of Ain’t It Cool News, one of the preeminent fan culture websites in the world.
Fanarchy premieres Saturday, October 10th at 8:30pm on HBO Canada, following screenings at Fan Expo Canada’s GeekFest Film Festival (which took place on September 5th) and the Atlantic Film Festival (happening on September 18th).
