Videoheaven

Alex Ross Perry's 2025 documentary takes the video rental shop as its subject. The film is built entirely from scenes taken out of other films and television; how the shop appeared on screen is followed across forty years. The argument is that the meaning of the place kept changing. The video store is shown first as an ordinary business, then as a centre of youth culture, and finally as the emblem of something lost; the same space serves a different purpose in each period. Maya Hawke narrates and the text takes the form of an essay. It runs close to three hours, and the material is deliberately drawn from both famous and unremarkable productions; the subject is not the history of cinema but the habit of watching. Who it's for: those who like film culture and documentary built out of archive. Who it's not for: viewers looking for something short; the documentary is long and carries a single idea all the way through.