HNIFF 2025
Video Store
Directed by Tanguy Pichon · Switzerland · 12 min · short · narrative
Stan works at a video rental store. His boss, Jacqui, treats him really bad and makes him realise how sad his life is. To escape the sad world he lives in, Stan starts to find peace in his favorites action movies, in which he imagines himself as the hero. Stan starts to slowly lose his mind, as the border between the movies in his mind and his tragic reality becomes more and more blurry.
This film's screening window has ended.
From the director
This story is close to my heart because it echoes a subject that is important to me. I worked in a home for 7 months looking after people with brain injuries. One resident in particular made an impression on me because, in addition to the significant brain damage caused by his accident, he also suffered from a mild form of schizophrenia. This man tended often to switch between the reality in which he lived (which he didn't much like) and a totally fictional one. This way of seeing the world enabled him to make it more interesting, more captivating, despite his obvious denial. I can't say whether he knew deep down that he'd probably never get out of that home or not, but in his own reality, he was going to be free or on the run any day now, and that idea kept him going. This way of distorting reality to make it more captivating, more beautiful allowed me to lay the foundations for this film and for the character of Stan. In effet, in his dream, we find Stan as an action movie hero. He is heroic, strong, brave and victorious. In reality, Stan is fearful, shy, lonely and harassed by a tyrannical boss. He lives in a huge, cold city where people are crushed and lead drab lives. Stan lives an absurdly hard life. So he begins to romanticise it to make it more interesting. The film constantly evolves on these two levels until the end, when one wins out over the other. Despite the horror of the final scene, for Stan it's a happy ending.
