LOGLINE

Employees use the local video store to escape the real world while the business struggles to survive.

BRIEF SYNOPSIS

During the emergence of high-definition media and digital distribution, Video Plus remains a stronghold for late fees, VHS tapes, and an old-school video store experience. Some of the store’s employees stay just a few months, avoiding a real job, while others stay for years, avoiding real life. But with its customer base shrinking and the industry changing, John, the store’s owner for over twenty years, is doing everything he can to keep his business afloat. It’s anybody’s guess how long the store and its employees can endure in a place with little to offer for the future but nostalgic feelings for the past. Finding genuine comedy and drama in everyday life, “SEVEN YEAR RENTAL” presents an intimate, compelling look at a store that’s long overdue.

EXTENDED SYNOPSIS

With its stringent late fee policy and VHS lined shelves, Video Plus is known throughout the community for its dated rental experience. The emergence of online rentals and high-definition has reduced the video store’s customer base and hurt its bottom line. As the store’s owner struggles to compete, his employees are left wondering if there’s anything that can really be done.

Using both an intimate one-on-one filming approach and an in-store security camera, "SEVEN YEAR RENTAL" follows the candid interactions between the store’s employees over the course of a year. While some focus on their reasons to leave, and others cling to their reasons to stay, there’s a camaraderie that is formed from dealing with the petty annoyances that make up the experience. Interspersed among the footage captured in the store are the unique perspectives and experiences of former employees, which serve as a narration for the current day happenings. The retelling of their own experiences, while often humorous, is grounded in nostalgia for a simpler time in their lives. After a year, you’ll have seen a generation of employees come and go, and it will become clear just how much things can change and still remain the same.

Removed from it all is the store’s owner, John, who manages from a distance and is rarely seen by his employees. Opening several locations over the course of twenty years, his business has mirrored the rise and fall of the industry. Though his presence has become minimal, he remains committed to his stores even as they face financial hardships. It’s only for the camera, when no one else is around, that he shares his thoughts and feelings on the current state of his life’s work and the future.

More than just a look at the everyday occurrences at a video store, "SEVEN YEAR RENTAL" addresses larger themes concerning our society, ourselves, and our culture. John’s struggle to maintain a profitable small business is representative of the struggles facing many small businesses in America. The employees personify the uncertainty we all face in life before we know where we’re going, and help us to appreciate the simpler times in our lives. And the store itself reminds us of the personal interactions that are lost as a result of an impersonal shift in the way we do business.

Weaving subtle moments of comedy and drama into the larger stories of a store and its people, "SEVEN YEAR RENTAL" presents an intimate and compelling film about a video store that’s long overdue.