Faire: An American Renaissance Bay Area Premiere! October 10, 2009

" A whiff of the occult, a flash of danger and a hint of the erotic. Here, they let you throw axes. Here are more beer and bosoms than you'll find in all of Disney World."

The film presents the creation of the Renaissance Faire and its metamorphosis to present day - the good and the bad, the pure and the bawdy, the struggles and the solutions. A vibrant cast of characters shares their stories about the Faire and how the movement informed their lives. The story begins in 1963 when the “Renaissance Pleasure Faire” was born as a class project by a history teacher on a small field on Haskell’s Rascals Ranch in Los Angeles. The idea quickly caught fire, as a place to critique, mock or escape the turbulent times of the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the 1960s. The film chronicles how Ron and Phyllis Patterson took a weekend event and turned it into a worldwide phenomenon, and how the Faire’s counter culture blossomed into now familiar mainstream events like guerilla street performance, living history reenactments, Reduced Shakespeare, and the hand crafted movement.

Faire: An American Renaissance will screen at the Oakland International Film Festival Saturday, October 10, at 9:15 pm at Merritt College, and on Sunday, October 11 at 7:00 pm at Uptown Nightclub.