Oregon Movies, A to Z

Barbershop Punk introduces us to Robb Topolski, the Hillsboro barbershop quartet enthusiast who proved, in 2007, that his ISP, Comcast, was using DPI to block peer-to-peer uploads, a discovery which resulted in an FCC order to end the practice.

The New York Times wrote about Barbershop Punk:

The film follows Mr. Topolski’s case to Washington, offering familiar but vivid glimpses into Beltway mores. (Ostensible civil servants, manipulated by lobbyists, often have greater loyalties to big-pocketed conglomerates than to the average citizen? Shocking.) But it’s noteworthy when nemeses like the Christian Coalition and the group Naral Pro-Choice America are on the same side of the Net-neutrality fence. The “punk” in the title refers to defiance and freethinkers like Janeane Garofalo and Henry Rollins, who provide eloquent digressions about the electronic dissemination and stifling of information and historical efforts to control such delivery systems.

How did filmmakers Georgia Sugimura Archer and Kristin Armfield fund Barbershop Punk? Kickstarter, naturally. Bet you didn’t know that you can use Kickstarter even if your executive producer is Anthony Dominici.

Ed. Note: the filmmakers politely corrected me. They used Kickstarter to underwrite a screening of the finished film, not to pay for production.

I hereby claim Barbershop Punk as an Oregon film on the basis of the Oregonian who inspired it.