Five years ago this month, a pair of determined martial artists from New Zealand teamed up to make an incredible fan film: The Fanimatrix. At the time, hype for the Matrix feature film trilogy was hitting stratospheric heights; caught up in the excitement, Rajneel Singh and Steven A. Davis of Auckland, NZ, decided to see if they could make a Matrix movie, too—and they certainly did.
Released on the web September 27, 2003, The Fanimatrix exploded on contact; written up on Slashdot the day it came out, the fan film’s website got nearly 3 million hits during the first five days the flick was available. Some say that as a result, it instantly became the most-seen short film from New Zealand ever.
And then a few months later, it was gone. Someone forgot to pay for the renewal of the Fanimatrix website, and the URL got snapped up by a site-name squatter. Suddenly, there was nowhere to download the fan film, and the free movie hosting mecca that is YouTube didn’t exist yet; between that, the filmmakers moving on to professional careers, and the underwhelming Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions sequels, The Fanimatrix was quickly forgotten, disappearing into oblivion.
Until now. and its are back on the net, and what’s more, FCT has an exclusive—and long—interview with director/cinematographer/editor/co-writer Rajneel Singh, telling how they made it for $500 and what happened to everyone after it came out. The interview’s so lengthy that I’m going to break it up as a multi-parter, running on Fridays for a week or two, starting tomorrow.
In the meantime, if you haven’t seen it before, sit back, grab a mug of coffee (or beer), click the green photo above and settle in for 16 minutes of eye-popping martial arts and good ol’ fashioned, resourceful fan filmmaking. In short, get ready to re-enter The Matrix.
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