Exciting news to come for ‘Fursonas’ documentary movie.
by Patch O'Furr
A followup to yesterday’s story: ‘Fursonas’ beats Zootopia as most important furry movie, coming on Video On Demand.
“Most important?” What’s with the sensational title?
Not the biggest or most widely appealing. Just one that stands apart.
There’s never been a furry-made feature film that got support from the movie industry, until now. Not just support, but pole position to open Slamdance, one of the most significant film festivals. It got an award for representing the spirit of the festival. Then it sold immediately to a mainstream distributor with Hollywood press, while tons of larger movies sit on the shelf.
That’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened in fandom-made media.
Disney’s non-fanmade “furry” movie is getting all the attention, while a by-and-for-fans movie is getting what any furry moviemaker dreams of. It’s a good reason for an article about what’s going on with the Year of Furry movies.
It was surprising that nobody talked about the Slamdance win when it happened… so here’s a little nudge to notice. The best part of the hype is it’s not just a furry movie, it’s a legit movie.
More news to come! Dogpatch Press will be on the story.
Director Dominic Rodriguez said that five furries attended the two screenings of his movie at Slamdance, with two in suit. Slamdance released a video as part of their Spotlight Series of a short interview with him, the producer, and Boomer The Dog.
For the upcoming L.A. screening, Dominic asked me (Patch) to moderate the Q&A after the film – a heck of a compliment (though it’s not feasible.) He said:
“The people from Slamdance suggested that we find someone noteworthy from the furry community for this job… just so you know, at the Slamdance Arclight screening last month, the Q&A moderator was JOHN LANDIS. Those are some cool shoes to fill :D”
And since this movie was compared to Zootopia as a big moment for The Year of Furry – one of Dominic’s sources ran into a Disney crew member, who reported that the film WAS purposely marketed (at least least in part) to furries. Hopefully there will be more such tips from inside the movie business.
Get to know more about Furry-related movies. With few exceptions, previous features are fiction. It’s a very select group.
There was Germany’s Finsterworld (the very best of the list, a fine movie on it’s own terms with a Furry subplot that deeply ties to the story. It was researched with Eurofurence ties).
In France, the comedy “Babysitting” won the “french oscar” (though it doesn’t tie furries deeply). From Hollywood, “Wish I was Here” didn’t make much of an impression. From Indies, “The Honey Cooler” and “Furries the Movie” (not furry-made) draw dislike. There’s not much else. (Bitter Lake is a non mainstream exception, the only fan-made feature so far.)
I’ve often thought there is a lot of potential for this little subculture to strike it big with it’s rich vein of oddball appeal, sweetness, fun (and of course, eye-popping sauciness in your imagination.)
Furmeets have major potential to bring cult movie vibes to life, the kind you can hug. A while back, it was exciting to share an idea of someday having a “Furry Film Fest”. Hopefully, one day Dominic’s movie will headline such a festival.
The Pittsburgh premiere sold out! I’ll be there, along with a suiter.
Weirdly, the PA Furry website has deleted all of Dom’s announcements about the premiere as “spam,” and they refuse to explain further. Might be a story in that. ??
Has Finsterworld seen a US release?
Man, wish I could go 🙂 Have fun!
That sucks about the deletions. I suspect typical petty in-group drama. Judging by the very small amount of drama I heard, maybe someone thought Boomer doesn’t “represent the fandom” (like, can’t people represent themselves and their own voice?)
Finsterworld seems sadly impossible to see anywhere outside of importing a German region coded DVD without subtitles. I have private access to a streaming english-titled festival screener, which I’m happy to share since it doesn’t take away business to share something that isn’t available anyways. Just email patch.ofurr (at) gmail if you want it.
I’m so glad that word was still able to get out about the premiere. The whole PA Furry thing has been very frustrating to say the least.
Apparently, anything marked as spam on the calendar gets instantly deleted with no review process, so the moderators told me there was nothing they could do.
Apparently.
Compare the WHOIS for anthrocon.org and pa-furry.org. That says it all.
I see that. If they’re deleting like that, they should at least give a polite direct reason instead of playing unaccountable to fans who generate content for the site.