“Fanny: The Right to Rock remains thoroughly engaging thanks to the demonstrable talent and brassy forthrightness of its central personalities.
There’s no whiff of “nostalgia act” to their current music — these women
are born rock lifers who clearly never stopped evolving creatively,
even if the hoped-for commercial rewards never quite arrived.”
— Dennis Harvey, Variety
“…a vivid look at artists who remained entirely themselves throughout
their careers. And they rock.”
— Norman Wilner, Now Toronto
“Intense hard rock. Searing guitar solos. Serious strutting on stage
with no sexual posturing. These aren’t things you often associate with
female musicians. So props to Bobbi Jo Hart, whose documentary…puts the spotlight on the groundbreaking all-women rock group that too few people
have ever heard of. Credit racism, sexism and homophobia to consigning
this outfit of excellent musicians, the first women’s band to secure a record deal with a major label, to near oblivion.”
— Susan G. Cole, POV Magazine
“Bobbi Jo Hart’s energetic documentary shines a light on one of the greatest, most forgotten all-female rock bands in music history.”
— Sydney Urbanek, The Spool
SYNOPSIS
Sometime in the 1960s, in sunny Sacramento, two Filipina-American sisters got together with other teenage girls to play music. Little did they know their garage band would morph into the legendary and ferocious rock group Fanny, one of the very first all-women bands to sign with a major record label. Yet, despite releasing 5 critically-acclaimed albums over 5 years, touring with famed bands from SLADE to CHICAGO and amassing a dedicated fan base of music legends including David Bowie, Fanny’s groundbreaking impact in music was written out of history…until now, with the feature-length documentary, FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK.
From director Bobbi Jo Hart (REBELS ON POINTE), FANNY:– THE RIGHT TO ROCK, winner of the Rogers Audience Choice Award at Hot Docs, charts the group’s formation, their rise, fall, and more recent reformation 50 years after their founding with a new album release, and covers the misogyny, bigotry and other roadblocks they faced along the way. Featuring incredible archival footage of the band’s rocking past intercut with its next chapter releasing a new LP today, the film includes interviews with a large cadre of music icons, including Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott, Bonnie Raitt, The Go-Go’s Kathy Valentine, Todd Rundgren, The Runaways’ Cherie Currie, Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian, The B52’s Kate Pierson, Charles Neville and David Bowie guitarist and bassist Earl Slick and Gail Ann Dorsey. Fighting early barriers of race, gender and sexuality in the music industry, and now ageism, the incredible women of Fanny are ready to claim their hallowed place in the halls of rock ‘n’ roll fame.