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Brian Flemming is a film director and playwright whose work has been described as "jaggedly imaginative" by the New York Times, "a parallel universe" by the BBC, and "immensely satisfying" by USA Today. His films and plays uniquely inspire cult-like loyalty among fans, engage critics with their intelligence and complexity, and still connect with broader audiences. Fox News Channel has called Flemming "a young Oliver Stone."
Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, Flemming studied English at the University of California, Irvine. While creating his first feature film, "Hang Your Dog in the Wind," he worked as a script reader for New Line Cinema.
To promote "Hang Your Dog in the Wind," Flemming co-founded Slumdance, a one-time 1997 film festival in Park City. This legendary event, never repeated, inspired numerous imitators in subsequent years.
Slumdance brought Flemming to the attention of indie film influencer John Pierson, known for discovering Spike Lee, Michael Moore, and Richard Linklater. Pierson became an outspoken supporter of Flemming and his debut feature, leading to Flemming directing and producing segments for Pierson's Independent Film Channel magazine-style show "Split Screen," which also featured a segment on "Hang Your Dog in the Wind."
Flemming’s next major work was the stage musical Bat Boy: The Musical, based on a story about a half-bat, half-boy from the outrageous tabloid Weekly World News. Flemming co-wrote Bat Boy with Keythe Farley and Laurence O'Keefe. Debuting in a small Los Angeles theater, the Actors' Gang, in 1997, the musical gained attention by winning L.A. Weekly's Musical of the Year, four Ovation Award nominations, and six Drama-Logue Awards.
Bat Boy: The Musical reached Off-Broadway in March 2001, earning the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical Off-Broadway, and six Drama Desk nominations. The New Yorker praised it as a "giggling cult hit" reshaping the American musical by reinstating narrative, while The New York Times lauded it, saying, "It is astonishing what intelligent wit can accomplish." The show ran in New York through December 2001 and has since been performed thousands of times worldwide in multiple languages.
Though Bat Boy appears to be a lighthearted comedy about a tabloid oddity, it explores profound themes, delivering a message that is at times troubling and at others joyfully uplifting. The play has been described as a self-contained religion, boasting a devoted fan base that competes to see the most productions and actively participates on the play's discussion board—an uncommon feature in theater fandom.
Flemming’s profile as an indie film director rose significantly with his second feature, the mockumentary Nothing So Strange (2002), about the assassination of Bill Gates. Premiering at the 2002 Slamdance Film Festival, it caused a sensation. Variety praised it as "a crackling good movie" and "possibly the ideal prototype film for the digital age." The film won the Claiborne Pell New York Times Award for Original Vision at the 2002 Newport Film Festival and attracted widespread international media attention. A spokesman for Bill Gates expressed disappointment over the film.
Despite positive reviews and extensive press, major distributors avoided the film, reflecting a trend toward favoring less controversial, "safe" movies—a pattern later seen when Disney blocked Miramax from distributing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
Undeterred, Flemming and his producers self-distributed the film innovatively. On October 23, 2003, Nothing So Strange became the first film to debut simultaneously in theaters and as an internet download worldwide. Hundreds of servers across the globe facilitated this historic online launch. In April 2004, the film was released on DVD, now available in over 200 countries.
Beyond film and theater, Flemming is an activist on copyright issues. He released Nothing So Strange as an "open source" project, making all raw footage available without copyright restrictions for others to create derivative works freely, though his final cut remains copyrighted.
Flemming founded Free Cinema, an organization encouraging filmmakers to produce films under two conditions: no production budget and releasing the film without copyright ("copylefted"). He argues that filmmaking can now be as affordable as writing novels and that copylefting helps new artists gain visibility and distribution in an industry dominated by large corporations. Free Cinema draws inspiration from the Open Source software movement, which follows similar principles. Additionally, Flemming operates Fair Use Press, which publishes e-books critiquing public figures like Bill O'Reilly and Arnold Schwarzenegger for their use of intellectual property law.
In between major projects, Flemming has worked as a photographer (for the London Mail on Sunday, Los Angeles Times, and L.A. Weekly), journalist (Filmmaker and Movieline magazines), awards-show writer (1998 and 1999 Independent Spirit Awards), and songwriter. In 1999, he produced the radio documentary "The Rabbi vs. Larry Flynt," covering a debate on pornography between a rabbi and Larry Flynt. He also maintains a daily personal weblog.
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