Your Cinema Needs You at the Paramount Theatre

My thanks to the Kamloops Film Society for selecting my documentary, Your Cinema Needs You for a series of screenings to help celebrate the 70th birthday of the historic Paramount Theatre in downtown Kamloops, British Columbia last weekend. 

Seeing this project travel the world and play in so many unique and historic venues has been the cherry on top of what we saw happen back home with the Monarch Theatre. 

Thank you so much for the continued support!

Generative AI & the Movie Theatre Documentary

With generative AI trending heavily this week on the back of some new Chat GPT updates, I set out to do a few experiments to see if I could learn more about the process - and hopefully, produce some hybrid results from original images that were created and restored during production of Your Cinema Needs You. 

Instead of simply generating content, what I wanted to see is if I could use an archival image I restored, an illustrated image of the Monarch I commissioned, and an image I photoshopped myself into - and experiment with how those elements could be combined and fine tuned. 

While the image of me in theatre was a simple Chat GPT conversion of an existing image, the wide shot of the theatre is a hybrid combining generative AI, hand drawn elements by my friend Jess, and "tests" where I photoshopped specific details of the theatre to further stylize and manipulate the results. Everything is increasingly falling into a new gray area. 

I personally still want to work directly with artists, particularly because, even here in a simple test, collaborating with Jess is what made this fun and gave our approach a point of view. 

All that said, did I like the result? Yes. Do I still have concerns about what the future of AI means for original content? Every. Single. Day.

Online Release of Your Cinema Needs You

The wait is finally over! After 15 months since the premiere that reopened the Monarch Theatre and the extended international film festival tour that followed, Your Cinema Needs You is online and available to screen Canada-wide right now. Click here.

Newsmaker of the Year: Luke Fandrich

I'm grateful, humbled, and very surprised. 

Yesterday, the Medicine Hat News announced in a full front page spread that I, Luke Fandrich was their 2024 Newsmaker of the Year - recognizing the success of my documentary, Your Cinema Needs You about the Monarch Theatre in Medicine Hat, Alberta. 

I only got the heads up a couple weeks ago that my name was being thrown around about this, but when we ran those first premiere shows of the documentary at the Monarch one year ago I really had no idea what 2024 had in store or just how far this film would end up going. 

I want to thank this community for their involvement throughout so much of this journey. 

Telling this story - in this way - would've been impossible without so many of you reaching out, sharing your experiences, and supporting the project from the very beginning. I can't downplay what a significant detour my year took, and the doors that opened, because of how well those premiere shows did. 

I want to thank the team at the Medicine Hat News for their coverage throughout the course of production of the documentary and for this recognition. Seeing this announcement was an amazing way to both cap off and kick off a year. Thank you!

Monarch Theatre Turns 113 Years Old

On this day 113 years ago, on December 21, 1911, Canada's (now) oldest, surviving, purpose-built movie theatre opened its doors to the public and screened its first films that very night.

The story of the Monarch Theatre in Medicine Hat, Alberta has largely flown under the radar for over a century, but I happen to think a documentary about this place would be a cool watch. Might even win an award or two.

Monarch Documentary Wins 14 Festival Awards

Without being able to properly respond to each individual message this week, let me just say thank you one last time to everyone who made this experience unforgettable. Thank you to the cast and crew, to all the audiences and supporters, to the producing team, festival organizers, promoters, and on and on and on. I'm incredibly proud of what we all achieved.

With the international film festival tour for my documentary Your Cinema Needs You concluding this month it's finally hitting just how much happened this year. More here.

A special shout out to the Monarch Theatre and to everyone in Medicine Hat, Alberta too. If we weren't already feeling the hometown love throughout all of this, the documentary was once again a front page story this week. It's been an ending right out of a Christmas special.

New irons are in the fire for 2025. Stay tuned.

International Film Festival Tour Concludes

It's finally over! After 10 months, the international film festival tour for my feature documentary, "Your Cinema Needs You" has finally come to an end! So, how'd we do? 

Over the course of this year the story of Canada's oldest, surviving, purpose-built cinema (the Monarch Theatre located in Medicine Hat, Alberta) was officially selected and screened at film festivals in more than 30 cities in 12 countries. 

The icing on the cake is that during this time we also picked up 25 festival nominations and 14 wins (including 8 in categories for best documentary)! 

I can't say thank you enough to all of the cast and crew who made this possible. Also, thank you to everyone in Medicine Hat who came out to one of the 16 premiere shows at the Monarch Theatre earlier this year. Without that initial reception I never would've pursued such an ambitious (and long) festival run. 

Details about what's next and where you can finally see the documentary are soon to come. I just wanted to say thank you again! A project like this wouldn't have been possible without the support you've shown. Original post here.

Next Steps, Milestones, and the Documentary

In the process of working on an update for tomorrow, it hit me that it was exactly one year ago that we finalized plans for the premiere screenings of "Your Cinema Needs You" and set the gears in motion to finally reopen the Monarch Theatre. 

This was meant to mark the end of the documentary. It wasn't. 

Who knew it would kick off a new series of side quests that (incredibly) would last another year. The 3 night premiere, which felt ambitious at the time, turned into a 16 show run with thousands turning out to see the debut (the encore of the encore of the encore). 

Not bad start for an indie doc.

And then the film festival run began. 

More news tomorrow about what's next.

Your Cinema Needs You in Australia

Your Cinema Needs You has picked up its final film festival selection and is off to Australia! This selection marks the 12th country the documentary has traveled to this year and will conclude the limited release / international film festival tour that kicked off in February 2024.

International Film Festival Tour Expands to 25+ Cities

"Hey, what's been happening with the Monarch Theatre documentary and when can we see it?" I've probably been asked this question more than any other this year. With the last festival schedules now being finalized, here's a brief (and overdue) update about the international film festival tour for "Your Cinema Needs You" directed by Luke Fandrich.

Needless to say, there have been no shortage of surprises throughout this entire experience. Since the premiere run ended back in February 2024, "Your Cinema Needs You" has been on an ambitious international film festival tour which quickly surpassed expectations for what this release would look like.

In the last 8 months, the indie doc about Canada's oldest cinema has gone on to screen in over 25 cities across 11 countries. From Los Angeles to Montreal to Berlin to Istanbul to Tokyo, the movie continued to pick up official selections in new venues that further pushed the release down the road as we built momentum.

These were all really good problems to have.

Where are we now? The notifications about final festival selections for 2024 are expected in the next few weeks. Regardless of the outcomes, this will see the festival run conclude this December and should fast-track public viewing options soon after. This means the long-teased wide release is finally on the horizon.

I'll get into more of the behind the scenes about this entire chapter in a future post.

Once again, thank you for the continued interest, patience, and support through all of this. I wouldn't have even pursued this detour had all the premiere shows in the Monarch Theatre not been such a huge success. It's been a life-changing ride.

More details to come.

The Oldest Surviving Cinema in Stockholm, Sweden

After a year of film festival screenings for my documentary, Your Cinema Needs You, including two of which that took place in Sweden, I made a point of visiting the oldest still-operating movie theatre remaining in Stockholm. This is the Zita, a small, but beautiful art house cinema that first opened in 1913. What can I say? All of the research about old cinemas that went into the production now has me actively searching them out on my travel shoots.

 

Searching For Hollywood's Oldest Cinema

With the film festival tour for my documentary, "Your Cinema Needs You" and some of my travel shoots overlapping this year, I've made a point of searching out old cinemas in a lot of the different places that I've been going.

In Los Angeles, a city full of incredible theatres, I thought it would be interesting to find the oldest cinema in Hollywood. This lead me down a bit of rabbit hole.

For starters, until Hollywood was incorporated into Los Angeles in 1910, the town had regulations specifying no theatres. Once incorporated, this changed quickly. The first cinema built in Hollywood in 1910 was called the Idyl Hour, which was later renamed the Iris Theatre, however the location changed several times in just a few short years. A very familiar story.

With only a few images and an old fire map to go on, the theatre would've been located on prime real estate on Hollywood Boulevard. Unfortunately, when I went to see what was there today this is what I found - an empty lot with a direct view of the Hollywood sign.

The cinema had been defunct since the 1920s and the name moved again, but I was curious if the building had been repurposed or modified. What makes this location special is just how many incredible cinemas are still in the area.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre (now the TCL Chinese Theatre) is just a few blocks away and in addition to still hosting movie premieres to this day, it's endured as one of the most famous movie palaces in the world. Quite the contrast from where the Iris began over a century ago.

Each of these detours makes me further appreciate what was uncovered in making the documentary about Medicine Hat's Monarch Theatre. It's a fascination about how much has changed, what's been left to find, and that through it all that little cinema back in Medicine Hat has survived when so many others didn't.