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Logline

Ball of chaotic-good energy Maggie Mackay risks personal humiliation and financial ruin to resurrect Vidiots, the greatest video store there ever was. She fights through tragic circumstances and inexorable trends to rebuild a community so indispensable that it calls into question our current trajectory, and reveals what we stand to lose as lovers of movies if we don’t change course.

Synopsis

Patty Polinger and Cathy Tauber – lifelong friends since the age of three – whose male bosses caused them to leave the corporate world with a bad taste in their mouth, decided to go into business together and open what would become the greatest video store the world has ever known. It would influence generations of filmmakers and leave an indelible impact on film culture.

Thirty years later, Maggie Mackay sets about the seemingly impossible task of resurrecting and reimagining Vidiots just as the pandemic hits. Over the course of the next several years, she would lose her colleague and best friend (an instrumental ingredient in bringing Vidiots back), and prove to the world what happens when people underestimate a “short, skinny, loud woman” with relentless passion.

To tell our story, we bounce back and forth in time, allowing Patty & Cathy and Maggie’s stories to be in conversation with each other, as they encounter similar challenges and echoes of similar circumstances. Patty and Cathy’s story is told primarily through archival video, newspaper clippings, and a wealth of ephemera that they managed to save over the decades. Maggie’s story is told mostly in the present day, with something that resembles a cinema verité approach. We eschew talking head interviews altogether (and use audio interviews only) allowing our subjects to play out more of the action, rather than tell the story to us.

We end on a jubilant note, having proven to the audience that building a thriving film community is possible if you actually care enough to build it. It is an invitation (figuratively and literally) to the party, which is to say, film itself.

Meet the Filmmakers

Erick Kwiecien — Director/Producer/Cinematographer/Editor
Erick moved to Los Angeles after college (where he co-founded an on-campus video store and worked as a projectionist at his local movie theater). Immediately upon arrival, his apartment was broken into and his entire collection of DVD’s were stolen. On occasion, he would visit Vidiots as respite from his commute from North Hollywood to Santa Monica, and was awed by the profound depth and breadth of its archive.

Years later, during the pandemic, Erick heard Maggie Mackay on KCRW talking about her quest to bring Vidiots back from the dead. This began a series of conversations that revealed the staggering challenges Maggie was up against. Eventually, he became convinced that the story of Vidiots was one that demanded to be told on film. Moreover, he was resolved that Maggie and Vidiots founders Patty Polinger and Cathy Tauber needed to be given their flowers for their impact on generations of filmmaking and film loving communities.

Erick’s producing credits have earned Grand Jury Awards at Oscar-qualifying festivals such as SXSW and Camden, and have been acquired by FOX Searchlight and The Atlantic.

VIDIOTS is his first feature length documentary, and his first as a director.

Lisa Yadao — Producer
Lisa is a Hawaiian-Filipina filmmaker with a focus on documentaries, branded content, and short narratives. She has produced and directed several short documentary series centered around womxn and food. Her commercial work includes award-winning short films, web series, and campaigns for Square, Caviar, and Bobbie Baby. She most recently directed an episode of the HBO Max show, TAKE OUT WITH LISA LING, which explores AAPI history and communities across America through the lens of food. She co-founded Paper Tongue, a filmmaking collective whose mission is to raise visibility for womxn, especially womxn of color, and to champion underrepresented perspectives in film and media. In her writing, she likes to explore serious things in funny ways, and is currently working on a short film trilogy about Hawaiian diasporic grief as well as a series that centers a Filipino matriarch and her acting dynasty. She is also currently producing feature documentaries by Lamia Lazrak (Dar Marjana) and Erick Kwiecien (Vidiots).

John Venzon, ACE: — Editor
John is a thirty year veteran feature film editor, who began as an assistant editor on such cultural touchstones as Pulp Fiction and Fight Club, and whose career expanded into animation with South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut and more recent projects such as The Lego Batman Movie, The Bad Guys, and the Netflix series Blue Eye Samurai. He is Vidiots’ all-time record holder for video rentals. He and his wife Jenni McCormick (Executive Director of American Cinema Editors) were married at Vidiots in the fall of 2024.

Danz CM: Composer — Composer
Danz CM is an American record producer, songwriter, composer, singer, graphic designer and the founder of the indie record label Channel 9 Records and the media brand Synth History

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Contact

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