*From October 17th, 2015
Closing out the Milwaukee Film Festival is a documentary about an adaptation of a film. The movie at the heart of it all is the 1981 classic - Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was a film that so impressed a couple of Mississippi kids back in the ‘80s that they set out to remake the movie, shot for shot. However, they ended up one scene short.
The documentary, Raiders!: Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, covers the effort to make that last scene, more than 30 years later. It’s the work of co-director Jeremy Coon, who produced Napoleon Dynamite.
"I just happened to stumble across this at a film festival. They were showing the adaptation and I was one of fifteen people in the audience," says Coon. Inspiration hit from after realizing the dream to finish this movie had to be done.
"There's just something so loving and nostalgic about their adaptation that you just can't help but love it," he says. Though this story is unique, the image of kids finding a passion and sticking with it for so long hits home for many.
"Raiders is one of those really, really special movies and its one of the few movies I think is befitting of this kind of tribute and this love cause it's just that good," Coon says.
*Updated July 11th, 2016
Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made willshow through Thursday night at the Times Cinemaon Milwaukee’s west side.
