Local documentarian embarks on labor of love

By Bill Brady

In high school, Alec Fischer worked for Sweet Martha’s Cookie Jar at the Minnesota State Fair, charged primarily with running supplies back and forth between what at the time were their two fairground locations.

More than a decade later, Fischer is again scurrying across the fairgrounds at a dizzying pace, but now he’s got a film crew in tow.

For more than three years, the independent filmmaker has been piecing together “The Fair,” a documentary that hopes to “give a modern look at the traditions of the American Midwest, as told through the whimsical world of the Minnesota State Fair.”

Edited to take place over a single day from dawn until dark, in actuality it contains footage from the 2024 and 2025 fairs shot over several days. Fischer and his team expect to spend most of 2026 editing the footage in hopes of having a finished product ready to hit the film festival circuit and possibly even a theater near you in 2027.

The film is the brainchild of Fischer and his co-producer, fellow local filmmaker Christine Delp.

“We were brainstorming ideas for observational documentaries,” Fischer recalled, referring to a fly-on-the-wall filmmaking style that captures real-life events as they unfold, with minimal intervention from interviews or narration. (Think “Hoop Dreams” or “Hard Knocks.”) “We were searching for a Minnesota theme, and Christine brought up the fair. I have vendor-side experience there, so I said ‘Let’s go!’”

Not so fast there, big guy. First they had to get permission from the State Fair to film on site.

“It took 8-to-12 months of pitching the (State Fair) leadership,” Fischer said. “They needed to trust that this young, independent film crew knew what it was doing. But ultimately we got official green light.”

In 2024, Fischer and his eight-person crew shot about a third of what he believes they will ultimately need, from cattle shows in the coliseum to the brightly lit midway at night.

They even captured Sunday morning Mass at the Family Fair Stage, sponsored by Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Roseville, at which Father Robert Fitzpatrick admonished attendees to “be patient” with other fair-goers that day, especially in the doughnut line.

This year, filming was scheduled for all 12 days of the Fair’s run. The result, Fischer hopes, will be enough footage to create “a selection of carefully interwoven stories showcasing the vendors, competitions and traditions that make the Minnesota State Fair intriguing and magical…to capture Midwestern culture as high art.”

Fischer needs to accomplish all of his project’s work on a modest $50,000 budget, most of which is being raised privately by the film’s fiscal sponsor, FilmNorth, a nonprofit dedicated to “empowering artists to tell their stories and sustain successful careers.”

To learn more about “The Fair” and donate to the project, go to thefairdocumentary.com. 

Bill Brady is copy editor and occasional contributor to the Bugle.