What happened to Kim’s Video? New York cinephiles were devastated to see the iconic Manhattan video store close in 2008. For decades, the venue offered an unrivaled selection — partly aided by an expansive bootleg inventory. That underground mentality permeates through the new documentary “Kim’s Video.” Directors Ashley Sabin and David Redmon offer a glimpse of what made it beloved before discovering a surprising mystery around the store’s storied collection.
The film, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival and Tribeca in 2023, might be a documentary, but it brings together a mix of unlikely sub-genres to tell the tale. According to Redmon, the documentary tag isn’t the best way to describe the project. “It’s funny because I don’t refer to it as a “documentary.” I like to call it a movie about movies, but it’s also a mystery movie,” the director told Cinema Daily U.S. “It’s a heist movie, it’s a comedy. It takes a bygone era seriously.”
The film’s official synopsis:
Physical media reigns supreme in Kim’s Video, an elegiac tribute to the iconic video store in New York City that inspired a generation of cinephiles before it mysteriously closed its doors and sent its legendary film archive to a small and slightly dubious Sicilian village for “safekeeping.” But what starts as an homage to cinema quickly becomes a rescue mission to ensure the eternal preservation of the beloved video collection.
“Kim’s Video” opens in New York and Los Angeles theaters on April 5. It goes wide in the U.S. and Canada on April 12. Get your first look at the trailer below.
