Kim's Video

Neglect, lies and videotape: the rise, fall and (improbable) rebirth of New York’s most legendary video store.

A long-time haven for cinephiles and bootleg obsessives, legendary New York rental store Kim’s Video housed over 55,000 titles – an unprecedented archive of world cinema in the pre-digital piracy era. But when its flagship location closed in 2008, the entire collection was unceremoniously shipped overseas under mysterious circumstances.

Kim’s Video traces the archive’s improbable afterlife in an international quest that blurs the lines between investigation, obsession and homage.

In their dogged, hyper-personal documentary about one of cinema’s most storied archives, directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin sidestep the straightforward story in favour of something far stranger – a globetrotting tale of mafia intrigue, a detective story, a bumbling heist caper – that’s equal parts mystery, memoir and meta-movie.

What begins as a search for a lost video collection becomes a playful, self-reflexive love letter to the power of cinema and the lasting allure of physical media.