RAIDERS

"Fans of film, filmmaking and Raiders of the Lost Ark are going to adore Raiders! It's a beautiful, inspiring story told with a ton of excitement and context." – /Film

In 1982, 11-year-old buddies Eric Zala, Chris Strompolos and Jayson Lamb set out to shoot a shot-by-shot remake of their favourite film, Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark. It took several summers, a toll on their friendship and nearly their lives, but eventually they completed their passion project – minus one scene: an Indy/Nazi fight scene that proved too pyrotechnic to pull off the first time around. Nevertheless, their fan film became the stuff of legend when director Eli Roth screened it in 2002, and then the internet got wind of it.

Jeremy Coon (a producer on Napoleon Dynamite) and Tim Skousen's feel-good documentary picks up the story several years after that, when the now 40-something amateur filmmakers, grown apart and with grown-up responsibilities, reunite to film that final scene. Chock-full of extraordinary behind-the-scenes footage and outtakes from the 80s and today, and featuring interviews with the likes of Roth, John Rhys-Davies and Ain't It Cool News' Harry Knowles, Raiders! charts the perils and real-life dramas of pursuing your dreams, at all costs.

"Captures the lunacy and love of fandom and friendship … the will-they-won't-they dynamic of the film grips you and it's almost impossible not to root for Strompolos and Zala." – The Guardian

For more contextual information on the film, the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Melbourne has prepared a study guide, which you can read here.