PRESS RELEASE
Vidiots Foundation is proud to announce the relaunch of its ambitious VHS digitization initiative, made possible by pivotal support from generous funders. The program’s mission is to preserve thousands of rare and culturally significant titles in Vidiots’ vast VHS archive, with an end goal to research rights holders, license titles, and ultimately make these works once again available to the public.
This program, central to the Vidiots mission, started in 2015, when the first 250 rare tapes were identified with a professional team of archivists and digitized with generous support from Post Haste Digital. Vidiots’ VHS preservation initiative will be an ongoing project, as the organization continues to intake and collect rare titles only on VHS. Now six weeks into the effort, Vidiots, working with Project Manager and audio-visual archivist Maya Edmond, has cataloged over 1,000 tapes, with the first 100 titles scheduled for digitization in coming weeks. Gems from the collection of works no longer publicly accessible in the US on other formats include legendary Mexican-American animator Bill Melendez’s Dick Deadeye or Duty Done; video compilation Sonic Youth: Goo featuring exclusive cover art by Raymond Pettibon; Kasarmu Ce: This Land Is Ours a Nigerian thriller by Saddik Balewa; and Milliya Rumarra: Brand New Day an extremely rare documentary celebrating the culture and music of Australian Aboriginal communities.
Vidiots will work with BAVC Media (Bay Area Video Coalition) to digitize the rarest tapes in the collection, ensuring consistent progress while maintaining the integrity of these fragile analog materials. This long-term initiative underscores Vidiots’ commitment to safeguarding film and video history not only to preserve these works and honor their makers, many of whom are underrepresented and underrecognized artists, but also to create a publicly accessible archive.
“From the moment I joined Vidiots in 2016, I’ve been most passionate about this project. Video is woefully under recognized as pivotal to film preservation, and many of the tapes in our collection hold a history of art and the City of Los Angeles that cannot be found elsewhere. We are immensely grateful to our team, BAVC Media, and the generous funders who are contributing to make this urgent project possible.” – Maggie Mackay, Vidiots Executive Director
“We are thrilled to embark on digitizing our rare VHS titles. Aside from preserving content, it's about rescuing fragile cultural moments from extinction. We want to ensure these stories and filmmakers can be seen, heard, and remembered by future generations." – Patty Polinger and Cathy Tauber, Vidiots Founders
About BAVC Media
Since 1994, BAVC Media has collaborated with artists, filmmakers, historical organizations, museums and universities to preserve thousands of hours of video and audio. As audio and video technologies have changed, and as old formats age and disintegrate, we are at risk of losing significant media that documents the art, culture and history of our diverse communities. BAVC Media works to preserve and digitize these cultural artifacts and other previous works of media art.
About Vidiots
A one-of-a-kind hub for film lovers, filmmakers, and everyone curious about cinema, Vidiots is dedicated to inspiring human interaction around film through preserving, growing, and providing access to a 70,000-title diverse DVD, BluRay, and rare VHS collection, and showcasing and celebrating the work of emerging, master, and underrepresented artists with year-round unique and affordable film events and vital education programs.
Vidiots operates seven-days-a-week at the historic Eagle Theatre in Northeast L.A., serving thousands of audience members and devoted video store customers, and hosting special guests and artists year-round. Vidiots believes in the power of film to bring people together, especially when we need it most. Vidiots is a 501(c)3 non-profit, gifts are tax deductible as allowed by law.