"Your Cinema Needs You" is set to premiere on TELUS Originals on March 19. The locally produced award winning documentary by Luke Fanrich will be free to stream online.--HANDOUT PHOTO
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
This Wednesday “Your Cinema Needs You” is set to premiere on TELUS Originals and will be available for free streaming.
The documentary, produced by local filmmaker and 2024 Newsmaker of the Year Luke Fandirch, shares the rich history of the Monarch Theatre and the impacts cinemas have within communities, and premiered in the theatre to overwhelming feedback following restoration work in late 2023.
After 16 local screenings at the Monarch Theatre, the documentary went on to be released in dozens of film festivals around the world throughout 2024, winning several awards including 25 festival nominations and 14 wins – eight in the category for ‘best documentary.’
Fandirch, founder of Editing Luke, says he’s excited to release the film online, providing people who were unable to attend any screenings in person at Monarch Theatre an opportunity to watch the production about the country’s oldest surviving purpose-built movie theatre.
“We’ve had a lot of people curious about it,” Fandrich says. “People who’d either heard about it through one of the festivals that happened, or who were aware of one of the premiers that happened at the Monarch but couldn’t make it out to see it.
“This will be great, I think now that regardless of where you are in Canada, it should be free and available to watch whenever you got the time to see it.”
On March 19 the documentary that unravels the theatre’s more than century long history can be viewed at any time online through a free streaming service offered by TELUS.
TELUS Originals supports filmmakers from Alberta and B.C. who produce compelling local documentaries. Fandrich worked with TELUS to secure funding for the documentary and began production in 2022.
“They try to reach out to producers who have a story that is regionally based,” says Fanrich, explaining the streaming service is fairly new with approximately 30 locally produced feature-length documentaries.
“So when ‘Your Cinema Needs You’ gets added to that it’s sort of developing this new platform that showcases this kind of work that I think TELUS is kind of exploring more of.”
Fandrich says the partnership with TELUS benefits the local community by allowing local filmmakers to explore and share stories that may not find funding any other way.
“I think it was really advantageous for the both of us because it was this story rooted in Medicine Hat that really had gone under the radar and that people were unfamiliar with, so trying to get funding to get something like that off the ground would have been really difficult. You need, essentially, the funding to put the research into telling a story like that.”
Fandrich says viewers can expect quality full-length documentaries when visiting the streaming platform that have been curated to tell interesting Canadian stories.
“TELUS opens the door to essentially the rest of Canada, to even have it in an exclusive space I think elevates it more than just being on, like, a YouTube video.”
To check out “Your Cinema Needs You’ on or after March 19, visit watch.telusoriginals.com.
