TIFF 2010: HOW TO START YOUR OWN COUNTRY Is Disturbingly Familiar ...

A very serious question for How To Start Your Own Country director Jody Shapiro: Have you received a phone call from BBC copyright lawyers yet? Because if you haven't, there's a fighting chance you will. Why? Because they already made this, with the exact same concept and the exact same title as a six part mini-series in 2005 with Danny Wallace. Someone, somewhere, at some point, probably should have run your title through Google.

Here's the official TIFF write up for Shapiro's movie:

Jody Shapiro's ultra-sharp documentary How to Start Your Own Country examines micro-nations - tiny states seldom recognized by better-known, more conventionally established countries. Traversing the globe, Shapiro introduces us to several states you've almost certainly never heard of.

Somewhere in Nevada is the Republic of Molossia. Its land mass is 1.3 acres, it's population six (basically the president and his pets). There's also the Principality of Seborga, established in 820 AD as a reward for returning Crusaders; North Dumpling Island, founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen; the Seasteading Institute, an experiment in offshore living; the New Free State of Caroline, a territory-less entity created by artist Gregory Green; Sealand, an abandoned World War II gun tower in the North Sea; and the Hutt River Principality, the second largest country on the continent of Australia.

Populated by genuine eccentrics, How to Start Your Own Country is idiosyncratic and hilarious. The founder of Molossia (where everything from Texas is banned) was inspired to create the country as a high school student after he and a friend saw the Peter Sellars chestnut The Mouse That Roared. Hutt River's leader, a man called Leonard, seceded from Australia over production restrictions. He declared himself prince and his appreciative wife, Shirley, princess. "It's a much easier job than a farmer's wife," Shirley enthuses.

But the film is also very serious, laying out the oddities and ironies of statehood through interviews with numerous experts. Is Lichtenstein less of a state because the Czech Republic doesn't recognize it? How many countries need to recognize you before you're taken seriously?

Shapiro is steadfastly respectful of his subjects, tuning into their burning desire for independence. He has a way of making eccentricity seem fascinating but totally rational. Someone who isn't represented by a recognized government has no real constitutional or international rights, and Shapiro plumbs these more practical considerations with intelligence. Elegantly made and well researched, How to Start Your Own Country is an entertaining, insightful and memorable work.

It's an interesting topic, absolutely, but one already covered five years earlier with exactly this approach by Wallace - who interviewed many of these exact same subjects - with the only clear difference that I can see being that Wallace actually founded his own legal nation over the course of his show. You can still become a citizen here.

Yes, I realize that it is possible to have two completely independent documentaries on the same subject. I get that. But to have two with the exact same title, interviewing many of the exact same people, only five years apart ... well, that doesn't feel quite so kosher. To make it feel less kosher, check the structure of the Danny Wallace TV series (Wikipedia comes in handy for that) against the trailer for the Shapiro feature. They're pretty much the same. Step one, find land. Step two, design a flag. And so on ...

You can check the trailers for both How To Start Your Own Country's below.