SPAIN'S oldest video rental store has launched a crowdfunding campaign to avoid having to close down.
Vídeo Instan, which opened on Barcelona's C/ Enric Granados in 1980, is seeking funds to enable it to turn into a meeting place for film buffs and silver-screen industry professionals.
The shop started its crowdfunding on the platform Ulule on Tuesday, and hopes to raise an initial €35,000 to renovate the premises, turning it into a café and cinema with seating for 32 – and maintaining the video rental side of the business.
So far, Vídeo Instan has been backed by big names in the industry – J. A. Bayona, Alain Hernández, Judith Colell, Leticia Dolera, and Spain's most famous off-the-wall cult director Pedro Almodóvar.
Anyone who supports the cause will be amply rewarded, Vídeo Instan says, with discounts on renting DVDs – and even VHS video tapes, where people still have the facilities to play them – as well as discounts on cinema tickets and prize draws where they could win entries to the Fotogramas de Plata ('Silver Photograms') Awards and the Gaudí Awards, Catalunya's answer to the Goyas or a regional version of the Oscars.
Vídeo Instan is currently run by Aurora Depares, whose parents founded the store 38 years ago.
Unlike national chains which began to pop up in the 1980s, Vídeo Instan is an icon in the Spanish film industry: among other gems, it is home to a one-off archive of over 44,300 film clips, and it organises a wide variety of cultural activities among film buffs, directors, actors, and artistic and technical teams.
The lease on the building, at number 30, expired in September and the owners wanted to up the rent by 200% to reflect market prices.
But Vídeo Instan cannot afford this, meaning it will have to shut down.
However, the crowdfunding campaign, if successful, will allow the store to move to a new premises – at number 239 of the C/ Viladomat – and reopen again before summer.
The photograph shows the current owner, Aurora, inside the shop talking to reporters, and was published on the store's Twitter page, @videoinstan.
According to recent Twitter posts since the crowdfunding campaign started, it appears to be going well and hopes are high that the shop will be saved.
