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Thursday, December 3, 2009

Comedy / Film Tonight at Central Cinema: The Found Footage Festival

Posted by Lindy West on Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 11:06 AM

Tonight, Central Cinema is hosting three screenings (7, 9, and 11 pm) of the Found Footage Festival's current tour. You should go to it. In this week's Concessions, I asked festival founder Nick Prueher (the orange one, I think) a few questions.

You claim to be hilarious. Can you give me an example?

Honestly, it's the videos that are hilarious. We're just the humble tour guides through our VHS collection. But having sifted through hundreds of hours of some of the worst footage of all time, we feel like we've earned the right to interject our own humorous remarks occasionally.

Why is footage you just found lying around somewhere better than footage you picked out on purpose?

For us, the story of how we found the video is sometimes just as interesting as what is on the tape. For example, we were at an estate sale in Queens, New York, a couple of years ago and bought a VHS camcorder for $5. When we got it home and plugged it in, we found a tape still inside. It turned out to be one of the most bizarre home movies we'd ever seen, involving an old man dressed as a woman dancing to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, but it wouldn't have been nearly as thrilling had we not found it by accident.

I found this clump of hair by the wading pool at the park. I can't tell if it's human. Will you put it in your festival?

Call me when you find a videotape of that clump of hair floating in the pool.

Read the whole thing HERE.