Sundance NEXT review: Kim’s Video by Ashley Sabin, David Redmon

A search for a video and DVD treasure trove lies at the heart of the thoroughly enjoyable Kim’s Video, as it veers from an archival exercise in re-telling the story of the now-legendary US video-rental chain through to a tale that blends possible Mafia activity and a film-themed heist before heading to a happy ending.

The film, which screened as the Opening Day selection of the Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT section, will entrance and possibly inspire lovers of esoteric and rare movies, especially those who engaged with the wild-and-woolly world of video rentals back in the 1980s and are still nostalgic for browsing shelves, late-returning fees and discovering underground film gems before the arrival of the internet. 

Produced, directed, shot and edited by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin (whose previous work includes documentaries Mardi Gras: Made in China and Girl Model) it is very much driven by the memories and musings of Redmon (who also provides the voiceover) as he recounts growing up in Texas and beginning an early love affair with cinema, eventually moving to New York where he discovered the Aladdin’s Cave of delights of the iconic chain of Kim’s Video stores, and especially Mondo Kim’s in St Marks Place.

A brash and breezy first 15 minutes sees the film recounting the history of the chain, set up by the enigmatic Korean immigrant Yongman Kim in 1987, initially as part of the dry cleaning business he ran. It expanded to five other locations and gained a cult reputation thanks to its “ornery” service and a catalogue that featured mainstream and arthouse alongside bootleg and underground titles.

As David Wain, former Kim’s Video member recalled, “it was like stepping into the gold mine of cool,” while for Anna Thorngate, former Kim’s Video clerk (and herself filmed in the now-famous Criterion Video cupboard), “it was just this weird little headquarters for a lot of watching and thinking about movies. It was just the place to get weird movies.”

By 2003 it had more than 55,000 rental titles and some 250,000 members, but the world was about to change as physical media gave way to streaming and many customers headed online. One by one Kim closed the stores until only Mondo Kim’s – which featured the most rare and eclectic of the collection – remained. Kim made a public announcement that he would donate the collection to an organisation that would house it in its entirety and keep it open to members. Bizarrely it ended up heading overseas to the small Sicilian town of Salemi, intended for an art project and lured by a “promise” of digitising the whole thing.

As filmmaker Alex Ross Perry, also a former Kim’s clerk says: “How could anybody for a second think that sending this entire thing to another country made more sense than NYU saying we will take it – as legend has it, those were the options he was faced with.” With a fanfare of popping corks a container of boxes containing the collection arrived in Salemi in 2009.

The film’s story then takes a change of direction as the filmmakers head to Sicily to track it down. Via the tourist office, local police and a nice white dog they eventually find the archive in a ramshackle building that is not open to the public. Sneaking in, they find water-damaged tapes and fading packaging, but make a run when the alarms go off. Eventually they connect with Enrico Tilotta, guardian of Kim’s Video and himself a film musician.

Heading eventually to South Korea they eventually track down Yongman Kim – who is less scary than they think he might be – who talks about his love of cinema, and regrets what has happened to his collection. Soon they are also drawn into a tangled web of Italian cultural politics and possible Mafia links, with Kim’s Video wrapped up in a Mafia investigation led by Leopaldo Falco, President of Anti-Mafia Investigation Commission (2013-2016).

The filmmakers eventually lure Kim over to Sicily to see the state of the collection himself (and they get to meet the white dog again) and also sit down – briefly – with the local mayor, Dominico Venuti. Kim admits to being sad about the state of the collection, but concedes it is beyond his authority to change things or even get it back to the US.

David Redmon, though, refuses to let things stand, and starts to watch heist films – Ben Affleck’s Argo in particular – as he plans to “rescue” the collection. He decides to make a fake film about a heist at the collection’s Sicilian home, and even gets the mayor to allow them to film there. Donning masks of the faces of various filmmakers, he and a few friends run around the storeroom and take items off the shelves (and also get to see that white dog), and eventually sits down with Kim and explains what they did. “Unbelievable…so surreal” he says.

In an engaging final twist, the filmmakers help broker a deal with the mayor, and in exchange for publicity for Salemi and a public statement of thanks from Kim, the collection eventually heads back to the US. On April 1, 2022, Kim’s Video & Music was relaunched as Kim’s Video Underground in the lobby of cinema chain Alamo Drafthouse’s Lower Manhattan location.

Kim’s Video astutely balances archival footage and interviews with globe-trotting investigation and a sense of warm-hearted and well-intentioned fun (it is engaging to see Enrico Tilotta, guardian of Kim’s Video, getting a music credit)even when it feels like a criminal conspiracy might sink the whole narrative. It is a story that will certainly mean something to those of a certain age who were brought up loving video rental stores, and for the filmmakers it also reinforces their deep love for cinema in all its many forms and formats.