VHS Massacre: Cult Films and the Decline of Physical Media

Dogtown and Z-Boys

May 2002 •English

This award-winning, thrilling story is about a group of discarded kids who revolutionized skateboarding and shaped the attitude and culture of modern day extreme sports. Featuring old skool skating footage, exclusive interviews and a blistering rock soundtrack, DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS captures the rise of the Zephyr skateboarding team from Venice's Dogtown, a tough "locals only" beach with a legacy of outlaw surfing.

The Hills of Qaytariyeh

April 1969 •Persian

A strange and mischievous documentary on an archeological site in the Qaytarieh hills in Tehran. This short narrates the story of the dead people who wished never to be found.

State of Bacon

May 2014 •English

State of Bacon tells the kinda real but mostly fake tale of an oddball group of characters leading up to the annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. Bacon-enthusiasts, Governor Branstad, a bacon queen, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, members of PETA, and an envoy of Icelanders are not excluded from this bacon party and during the course of the film become intertwined with the organizers of the festival to show that bacon diplomacy is not dead.

Nobody Wants Your Film

May 2005 •English

Director Peter Judson's semifictitious tale opens a revealing window into the indie filmmaking process, capturing the trivialities, aggravations and enthusiasm that go into completing a picture. Using footage from an indie movie set, e-mails constructing a plotline about distributor difficulties and interviews with indie mainstays such as Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell, the film provides a riveting look at one producer's rejections and rewards.

Movie Hoarders: From VHS to DVD and Beyond!

July 2021 •English

Filmmakers and collectors lift the curtain on their manic media obsession that is not only a huge part of their lives, but the lifeblood of their existence!

Thot-Fal'N

June 1978 •English

This film describes a psychological state "kin to moonstruck, its images emblems (not quite symbols) of suspension-of-self within consciousness and then that feeling of falling away from conscious thought. The film can only be said to describe or be emblematic of this state because I cannot imagine symbolizing or otherwise representing an equivalent of thoughtlessness itself. Thus the actors in the film, Jane Brakhage, Tom and Gloria Bartek, Williams Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Olovsky and Phillip Whalen are figments of this 'Thought-Fallen Process', as are their images in the film to find themselves being photographed."

Moving Memories

May 2024 •Portuguese

On April 1st, 2022, my grandfather passed away and i felt lost. I think my path changed when, some days after he passed away, i was offered a small VHS camera. "Moving Memories" is a visual journey that makes the viewer reflect on our momentary presence on earth and questions the nature of memory. Throughout this journey, we get to the conclusion that memories are more than just static photographs in our minds, they're alive and in constant movement, changing while we evolve as individuals. These memories have influence and help us to move on.

Into Great Silence

September 2005 •German

An intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.

No End in Sight

July 2007 •English

Chronological look at the fiasco in Iraq, especially decisions made in the spring of 2003 - and the backgrounds of those making decisions - immediately following the overthrow of Saddam: no occupation plan, an inadequate team to run the country, insufficient troops to keep order, and three edicts from the White House announced by Bremmer when he took over.

Horror Movie: A Low Budget Nightmare

October 2017 •English

A filmmaker's lifelong dream quickly becomes his worst nightmare when he attempts to make a low budget horror film about an aborted fetus that seeks revenge on its family.

self perception

February 2021 •English

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

March 2006 •English

This 2005 documentary film chronicles the life of Daniel Johnston, a manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist, from childhood up to the present, with an emphasis on his mental illness and how it manifested itself in demonic self-obsession.

Night and Fog

April 1959 •French

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

The Blade Runner Phenomenon

May 2021 •German

Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick and released in 1982, is one of the most influential science fiction films ever made. Its depiction of Los Angeles in the year 2019 is oppressively prophetic: climate catastrophe, increasing public surveillance, powerful monopolistic corporations, highly evolved artificial intelligence; a fantastic vision of the future world that has become a frightening reality.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

August 2006 •English

In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline... Ten years later, these cars were destroyed.

Fuel

November 2008 •English

Record high oil prices, global warming, and an insatiable demand for energy: these issues define our generation. The film exposes shocking connections between the auto industry, the oil industry, and the government, while exploring alternative energies such as solar, wind, electricity, and non-food-based biofuels.

The Order of Myths

July 2008 •English

In 2007 Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras is celebrated... and complicated. Following a cast of characters, parades, and parties across an enduring color line, we see that beneath the surface of pageantry lies something else altogether.

Up the Yangtze

September 2007 •Chinese

At the edge of the Yangtze River, not far from the Three Gorges Dam, young men and women take up employment on a cruise ship, where they confront rising waters and a radically changing China.

The Real Cancun

April 2003 •English

Sixteen American college students drink, flirt, fight and canoodle during their Spring Break vacation in Cancun, Mexico.

Videosyncracy

September 2010 •English

As the dissociated convenience of the Internet and globalized corporate culture continue to shut down brick-and-mortar video stores, what will happen to the longstanding, local hangouts with their rugged individuals known as clerks and the communities who love them? Videosyncracy follows three very different video rental stores as they negotiate their survival in three distinct Los Angeles neighborhoods: Old Bank DVD in the Downtown arts district, Vidiots in sunny seaside Santa Monica, and Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee in bustling North Hollywood. Their stories chronicle not only the birth and twilight of a particular kind of corner store, but also decades of personal lives intertwined with those of their communities, the new challenges and facilities of a rapidly changing world, and an enduring love of the movies, a slice of Americana on the brink of disappearance yet defiant to the end.