In April of 2018, director Panayioti (Pan) Yannitsos met with Crowbar Pictures founder Shawn Galvao to discuss the Florian’s Knights; a new firefighter motorcycle club making waves across North America. Driving home from that meeting, Pan found himself bumper-to-bumper with retired Vancouver Battalion Chief Rod MacDonald, who was riding his motorcycle, a Florian’s Knights patch on his back. Staring at the patch for several minutes in traffic, the serendipitous event convinced Pan to sign on to direct this film.
Only one month into production, Florian’s Knights founder Nick Elmes was photographed posing with a member of the notorious Outlaw motorcycle club, The Hell’s Angel’s. With the media and city officials misrepresenting the club’s purpose and threatening the jobs of its members, producers Pan and Shawn decided to triple the film’s budget and continue filming to save the reputations of these firefighters.
Over the course of three years, Pan and a core team of only four filmmakers slept in fire halls across North America, often in 24-hour shifts, responding to emergencies in real time. The film crew would become so efficient, that on one particular occasion in Detroit, they arrived before emergency crews at a house fire. The arson squad investigated the production to ensure crew members had no hand in starting the fire because they were on scene so quickly.
Florian’s Knights Website: Click Here
Freedom Besieged Website: Click Here