Fanny should have entered the history books immediately. They were, as longtime supporter Bonnie Raitt puts it, “the first all-woman rock band that could really play, and really get some credibility in the musician community.” They also released several major-label albums, toured extensively and were a principally Filipina American act in the primarily white-male landscape of early 1970s rock. Yet somehow they went from also-rans to a footnote, then a reclamation project that even champions of pioneering women in music tended to overlook.

Fortunately, the original members are still alive and more or less kicking (out the jams, of course) 50 years later, making Canadian documentarian Bobbi Jo Hart’s “Fanny: The Right to Rock” an overdue appreciation that its subjects clearly relish. They’ve since become mentors to young female musicians, and this tribute should have considerable appeal to latter-day artists and fans who value such trailblazing role models — but believed there weren’t any, really, at least before Joan Jett, Heart or Suzi Quatro. It’s a very enjoyable film with strong prospects in various formats after its Hot Docs premiere. Blue Ice Docs has already picked it up for Canadian distribution.