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A new documentary scheduled to premiere on April 5 will explore the history, trajectory and cultural impact of Kim's Video & Music, the East Village video and music retail store that many New Yorkers still remember fondly.
As seen in the trailer, there is a lot to unpack: the last location of Kim's Video & Music shuttered almost exactly ten years ago, with owner Youngman Kim supposedly taking his unique collection of 55,000 films (one of the largest in the world!) to a small Sicilian village.
Some ensuing legal issues led Ashley Sabin and David Redmon, the directors of the new documentary, to find a way to bring the works back to this side of the Atlantic.
In 2022, a new version of the iconic shop debuted inside the then-newly launched Alamo Drafthouse location on Liberty Street.
We expect the 85-minute-long film to go into details about how that history all unfolded.
"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,'" reads an official synopsis of the production, which opens in NYC and Los Angeles on April 5 and expands throughout the U.S. and Canada on April 12. "But what starts as an homage to cinema quickly becomes a rescue mission to ensure the eternal preservation of the beloved video collection."
It's always exciting when a business that helped shape the city's character becomes fodder for new artistic undertakings.