When I was a teenager, I started taking tickets at the US Film Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah, after the screenings, I would ask the filmmakers to give me a list of the films they loved and thought I needed to see!
I remember taking this list to the local video store and the clerks would look at me blankly, like I had made up the list of film titles on the paper. I'd have to drive 14 hours to San Francisco to find some of the films.
Later I moved to New York City and I lived on 7th Street between B & C. I found Kim's Video, the second day I lived in NYC. It was like paradise and only one block from my house. I lived at Kim's, I would go in there at least once a day and often more. I went through thousands of videos in their collection.
So when I read this article in the New York Times, I almost cried.
I love that the collection has found a home and I really love that the city of Salemi decided that the way to renew their town was to put the artists in charge and to put on a Never-Ending film festival!
I love love love this line: "promoting “culture as an everyday thing, something you consume every day,” ...an effort to give artists political power."
I might need to move to Salemi now. "Salemi is the future, New York is the past"
