There have been a few interesting looking movies turning up on my radar lately. And it occurred to me that they all share something in common – They’re all totally niche, and about… Well, odd ball stuff. Stuff that, in some strange way or another I find interesting, and in some way or another I find compelling. They’re all about real people, people whom you might not recognise at first, but they are people who have all in some way changed the world we live in.

The films I’m talking about are all Geek Documentaries.

The first film I purchased was Project Aardvark – A story of four interns who take on a summer job at Fog Creek Software. Owned by the legendary Joel Spolsky. Who was probably one of the first technical bloggers, before the term ‘blog’ had even been coined. The movie itself pretty good, although not super amazing. But it does have its moments.

Since then, there have been some other solid looking titles.

Helvetica - A movie about a freaking font? Who’d a thought it even possible to get a movie made about a font, let alone get people to see it? And whats more, to enjoy some pretty good success. It’s even been doing screenings at various film feastivals in like, you know, a real theatre.

In Search of the Valley – A story of three friends journey from London to Silicon Valley, where they meet up with and chat to many of the valley’s living legends, including Steve Woz – creator of the Apple and Apple II computers as well as a whole host of other people. The trailor can be viewed on youTube here

GetLamp - A look back at one of the long lost (commerically at least) art forms. GetLamp is a documentary about the text adventure game. An interesting look at one of the first convergences of art and technology. The movies not out yet, but a trailor can be seen on youtube.

8Bit – A look into the art and music of 8bit computers, synthesisers and videogames. Also not out yet. Trailor here.

Are we going to see more and more of these niche titles coming up? I certainly hope so, with the realitively low cost of todays digital video hardware and software. Combined with leaveraging the internet as a distribution medium. It could be realitively inexpensive for budding young filmmakers to produce movies about their own passions and interests. No matter how oddball they are, there’s probably at least a few others in this great wide world who’ll appreciate the work.