ENTERTAINMENT – Film society purchases MovieMart video business

One of Canada’s last-surviving video-rental stores has been sold. The Kamloops Film Society has purchased the MovieMart video rental business from Denis Walsh and will continue running the operation out of the Paramount Theatre beginning this fall.

MovieMart was started by Walsh in 1982 and he believes it is the longest running video store in the world.

“The KFS is truly honoured to keep his 40-year collection of films together and to continue his legacy of offering the Kamloops community the opportunity to rent the newest film releases and older favourites, including niche titles that aren’t available on any streaming platform,” The film society said today (Aug. 4, 2021).

Although Walsh has mixed feelings about closing his store, he said he’s “extremely happy” that the film society has purchased the inventory.

“Over the past four decades MovieMart has been collecting this very extensive and eclectic selection of movies. It is wonderful the KFS will be keeping this unique diverse video library intact, allowing Kamloops movie fans the opportunity to still have access to these fine films.”

Over the next few weeks, the KFS will bring the collection over to the theatre, sort out logistics, organize a layout, hire staff, and prepare to re-open the video store in September.

“The Kamloops Film Society’s mandate is to provide hand-picked, diverse, high-quality films to Kamloops and area,” said executive director Dušan Magdolen.

“Taking over the operations of the MovieMart video store is just another extension of that commitment. Though we are coming through a very difficult financial period, and aren’t sure what our future will hold, we realize that diversification and evolution are the keys to our continued success, so taking on this new adventure was an obvious move and we couldn’t be happier about the potential benefits.

“As a charitable organization, we are happy to accept donations of any films (all formats) that community members are looking to purge, as well as working VHS/DVD/Blu-ray players, for us to utilize as rental or sales items in this new endeavour.”