Most 12-year-olds watch their favourite movies on the television screen and become lost in a familiar storyline, until a relevant melody brings it to an end and the credits finally roll up. At 12-years-old, Luke Fandrich was filming home-directed movies in his spare time with a handycam. And throughout the years, his interest in searching for the story and filming it in present time became a wonderfully infectious feeling.
"It’s the heritage value, the architectural significance, and the human component that has been so compelling to discover." - Luke Fandrich.
Fandrich studied film and media production at the University of Regina where he built a website to share his early work and movie-making ambitions. By 2014, the project had evolved into a production company, and he officially became the full-time artist behind Editing Luke
Born and raised in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Fandrich directed his first feature-length documentary in 2019 titled, CLAY, CREATIVITY & THE COMEBACK, a film that dives into the long history behind the National Historic Site, Medalta in the Historic Clay District. The response to the documentary inspired him to search out another story in Southeast Alberta.
"The Medalta project really clued me into the fact that there are fascinating stories in Medicine Hat that haven't been told in this way before. It made me realize I should create something again, find another place I'm curious about and try to put a story together, because there had to be another one. Sure enough, that was the case with the Monarch Theatre," says Fandrich.