Official Trailer for ‘Videoheaven’ Doc – A Tribute to VHS Video Shops
by Alex Billington
June 22, 2025
Source: Twitter
“This is the story of the birth, life, death, and afterlife of the video store.” An offiical trailer has debuted for a documentary film / essay film titled Videoheaven, a tribute to and love story about video stores of the past. This is the second new doc out this year from director Alex Ross Perry, along with Pavements, and it’s ready for release in theaters starting in July. Only playing at art house cinemas. This doc first premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival (IFFR) then played at the Tribeca Film Festival this summer. Since the 1980s, the video shop has been a desperately necessary space for film culture. In Videoheaven, Alex Ross Perry tells the story of the neighborhood VHS video shop in order to consider wider, changing social histories, using appropriated footage from many sources. Featuring upbeat narration by Maya Hawke. The craziest part about this is that it’s a full-on 3 hour film. Not sure why there needs to be that much footage in this doc, but if you want a nostalgic trip right back to the glory days of VHS and rental shops, then this is a must see.
Here’s the official trailer (+ poster) for Alex Ross Perry’s doc Videoheaven, originally from Twitter:
First look at the trailer for #Videoheaven, Alex Ross Perry’s essay-documentary about the rise and fall of the video store. Narrated by Maya Hawke.
Opens at @ifccenter in New York July 2, and Vidiots in LA August 6, with expansion to follow. pic.twitter.com/V7lGOMO7xY
— Letterboxd (@letterboxd) June 21, 2025
Intro via IFFR: For some thirty years, from the 1980s until their decline in the 2010s, video shops were crucial arenas for film culture – and both highbrow and lowbrow American cinema has documented their rise, fall and changing meanings. Alex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven, a labour of love ten years in the making, retraces this history using solely appropriated footage from a vast array of films, ranging from huge Hollywood productions to non-professional no-budget affairs, sold solely at their neighbourhood video shop. Inspired by Daniel Herbert’s book “Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store”, Perry renders the video shops a mirror for a wider social history of various developments in media, community structures and the flow of capital – how, for example, the early video shops with their bespoke, responsive curation, were pushed aside by chains with commercial, centralised selections, and how a culture of secret knowledge once generously shared was turned into an institution for the manufacturing of consensus… 📼
Videoheaven is directed by American indie filmmaker Alex Ross Perry, director of the films Impolex, The Color Wheel, Listen Up Philip, Queen of Earth, Golden Exits, Her Smell, and the other faux doc Pavements, plus many music videos. It’s produced by Andrew Adair, Daniel Herbert, Jake Perlin, Alex Ross Perry. This first premiered at the 2025 Rotterdam Film Festival months ago. Videoheaven opens in select US theaters (first at IFC Center in NYC & Vidiots in LA) starting July 2nd, 2025 with more theaters later on. Who’s in?
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