FANBOY
Dir. Bean McKee, 2025.
United States. 83 min.
In English.

SUNDAY, APRIL 12, 5 PM
FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 7:30 PM (with Q&A with actor/director Jon Washington and editor/producer Stephen Mlinarcik)
SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 10 PM (with Q&A with actor/director Jon Washington and editor/producer Stephen Mlinarcik)

Awkward young man Allen (Jon Washington) moves into the heart of The Ohio State University campus just in time for football season. Though not enrolled at the school, his pilgrimage to the epicenter of Buckeye Country is both the dream of a die-hard fan and an attempt to connect to his estranged father, himself an alumnus of the university. But no one seems to appreciate the game the way he does. Nobody else gets it. Alienated among his fellow fans, he grows increasingly desperate, drifting across the sea of scarlet, the threat of violence beneath each misunderstanding, bruised ego, and uncomfortable interaction.

Shot guerrilla-style on the OSU campus, FANBOY captures the details and decadence of Midwestern football culture with a documentarian’s eye, but never lets go of the tension at the core of the character study, allowing the fraying of Allen’s psyche to play out against the game day excitement and day-after-game day comedowns, on a foundation of Natty Ice cans and beer pong debris. Someday a real rain will come and wash the Solo cups from the frat house lawns.