The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Across the Twin Cities, Summer spells FILM. With festivals and outdoor screenings popping up in every park (and parking lot) around town, scoring your cinematic fix is as easy as walking out the door. This season, vow to support local filmmakers and indie film-related businesses like Cinema Revolution, the defunct indie film rental store, which will be re-opening its glorious DVD rental library inside Intermedia Arts this coming weekend. Don't miss this week's Revolution Reel series on Tuesday, June 23rd, featuring a screening of Cinema Revolution founder John Koch's independently produced film, Je Ne Sais Quoi.  We caught up with Mr. Koch to talk about his iconic store, the Revolution Reel series, upcoming projects and the future of local cinema.

Tell us a bit about Cinema Revolution. What was your motivation behind opening the store and the idea behind the moniker?

At the time we opened in 2003, good films on DVD were impossible to find. As the transition from VHS to DVD was happening, the corporate chains were loaded up with Hollywood fare that was more profitable, and we were able to start small and blow their foreign and indie selection away. The objective was to create a store focused on cinephiles, similar in concept to say the Wedge or Tao Foods, where we just select the quality, integral titles and leave the high fructose corn syrup type of movies to the big chains. This is a revolutionary concept for a video rental store.

How do you think businesses like Netflix and Blockbuster affect the survival rate of independent movie stores? And why do you think independent movie rental is so important for our community?

They both operate with a scorched earth mentality, and seek not only to profit but to destroy all competition. Netflix's publicly stated goal is to put all video stores out of business. I think that competitive diversity and sustainability are very important concepts in business, but that is unfortunately now not the dominant corporate paradigm. Competition helps our economy thrive and stay healthy and the last thing we want is for an entire industry to be controlled by a few large companies, but that seems to be the way everything is going, as the same thing that is happening to video stores is happening to many retail industries. Small businesses are dropping like flies, and the key is now that you have to specialize. You have to be nimble and use your smallness and localness to your advantage.

CR and you personally, John, have always been a huge supporter of the local arts. You even helped release a Blackthorns album a few years back. What connection do you see between the local films and local music? Do you think they have a responsibility to support one another?

Music is really a different animal (one can get paid for performing), and musicians have a much more accessible system in place for supporting themselves as independent creators than filmmakers do.  Though starting out in a creative field is never easy, there are literally hundreds of venues in town for musicians to perform and only a few for independent filmmakers, and the audience for local film is minuscule by comparison. We are trying to change that through Revolution Reel. Local filmmakers shouldn't have to ship their DVDs all over the world just to get an audience and some recognition. It's hard to combine music and film at events, though, because I've found they tend to draw different audiences, unless of course it's something like Sound Unseen. I have also included local groups such as Roma di Luna, the Blackthorns, and To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie in my films, and encourage all local filmmakers to try to do the same and tap into the enormous local talent we have here.

Tell us a bit about the Cinema Revolution Society and your new project, the Revolution Reel Series.

The mission of the Cinema Revolution Society is to invigorate film culture in the Twin Cities. We have the programs of Revolution Reel, our soon to be launched Lecture and Discussion Series, and the soon-to-be-reopened DVD rental store. We also want to encourage and propagate independent curators and promoters to show repertory film around town.

Revolution Reel's first series began in June and runs into early July. For this first series we are featuring pre-existing work of local filmmakers in feature-length and short form. This initial program includes some films previously not locally screened, some films recently shown at festivals around the country, and some films recently shown at the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival last year. The next step will be to start commissioning work for the upcoming series. We will give filmmakers a reasonable timeline and a screening date, and it will then be their responsibility to complete the work. Filmmakers will be under contract to deliver, and will be held accountable for covering the costs of the rental if they fail to provide a finished product on time. This is similar to the production model within which stage productions operate. Through this, the "unlimited timeline" of many perpetually ongoing projects is eliminated. It also teaches filmmakers to operate in a more structured and professional mode., Before any commissioned film can be screened, the filmmakers will be required to present their finished work and receive feedback from two film critics. We will provide a list of filmmakers who are willing to work with the Society, or criticism can be sought elsewhere.

You've produced, directed and wrote screenplays for a few local films, including "Je Ne Sais Quoi" which will be screened during the Revolution Reel series this Tuesday. What inspired your love of cinema and desire to become a filmmaker, and what directors/actors do you find the most formative?

I've loved movies ever since I was a child, and making them is the only thing I've ever wanted to do. My biggest inspiration is the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky in terms of his style, philosophy and approach to filmmaking. I am also very inspired by Jean-Luc Godard for his approach to production and his fervent iconoclasm.

What is your opinion on film projects like this week's screening of "48 Hour Film Festival"? What does the future holds for indie cinema, and local films in particular?

Personally I think the 48 Hour Film Festival is nothing but a novelty and a waste of time. Filmmaking is difficult enough without imposing even more limitations. I don't see the point in it at all, and I think it just marginalizes and trivializes the filmmaking process. Who cares how fast someone can do something? It's like a cinematic pie-eating contest. I'd much rather see someone spend some time on their work and give us something worthwhile.

The future is as wide open as ever for independent filmmaking. We have more tools for production and distribution than ever before and it just keeps getting better. Film is still a young art form and it has barely scratched the surface of its potential in my opinion. Local filmmaking has a ways to go here in terms of creating an indie community the likes of Austin, Portland or Seattle, but the seeds and potential are here. All it will take is for one film to break.

Besides the new Revolution Reel series, do you have any other exciting ventures in the making? Should we be holding our breath for Cinema Revolution re-opening anytime soon?

Yes. The Cinema Revolution Society is reopening the full DVD rental operation of Cinema Revolution inside Intermedia Arts at the end of June. Also, I am in post-production on a new film called The Seducer which will be shown at this year's Minneapolis Underground Film Festival in December. The film is based on Dostoevsky's short story White Nights. I am also designing the video for two Walker Art Center Momentum series dance projects this July.

For more information on Cinema Revolution and The Revolution Reel series, visit www.cinemarevolution.org

This week's Revolution Reel screening: Tuesday, June 23rd, 7:30 p.m., Intermedia Arts, 2822 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis, $5