David Redmon: Last News

Premiering on the first day of the Sundance Film Festival, Kim’s Video is the perfect Sundance documentary, a playful and intelligent film that teases one thing and delivers quite another. Just as 2012’s Searching for Sugar Man set out to find a missing soul singer and uncovered a secret history of anti-apartheid rebellion in South Africa, this affectionate and funny film by Ashley Sabin and David Redmon and playing in the fest’s Next lineup starts as a nerd’s quest and transforms into, well, actually two things: one a glorious shaggy dog story that somehow links a New York dry cleaner, the Coen brothers’ late fees, South Korea’s CIA and the Mafia, the other an astute and actually rather moving rumination on the very real social importance of film history.

What happened to Kim’s Video? New York cinephiles were devastated to see the iconic Manhattan video store close in 2008. For decades, the venue offered an unrivaled selection — partly aided by an expansive bootleg inventory.

Fremantle and Carnivalesque Films have announced their partnership on Kim’s Video, a new feature documentary unearthing the stranger-than-fiction story of the legendary NYC video rental store Kim’s Video Collection, which will world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, as announced earlier today, screening as the opening day film of the NEXT section.