REPORTING. “JM Vidéo”, one of the last video clubs in France, is resisting

25 years ago in the spring of 1998, the first films on DVD, a then revolutionary viewing format which was to supplant the old VHS cassette, arrived on the French market. At the time, the video clubs, these rental shops for individuals, were around 5,000, present throughout the territory. Today, there are only about ten in France.

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The hegemony of VOD and streaming platforms, practices which exploded during the Covid and its confinements, partly explain why the “physical” film market lost market share: DVD sales fell by 82% between 2010 and 2021, according to the CNC-GfK barometer.

And among the handful of video stores still standing, a sort of “Gallic village of cinephilia“, in the words of the boss Philippe Zaghroun, still and always resists the streaming invader: “JM Vidéo”. The store has been established since 1993, avenue Parmentier, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. , to a loyal clientele looking for advice, word of mouth between local residents, and above all a rich catalog of more than 50,000 references, including some very rare films.

little nuggets

Philippe Zaghroun, the owner of the place, had however told us that Monday was a day usually “calme”. But on that day, customers come to “JM Vidéo” at the rate of one every five minutes or so, to return a film, talk about it and often ask for advice on the next rental. The lessor therefore acts as the last bastion in a dematerialized world where platforms are queens.

“We were mainly looking for films by cinephiles, things that couldn’t be found.”

Philippe Zaghroun, boss of JM Video,

at franceinfo

“There is a very cinephile clientele here, so we will always go and find the little nuggets, the films that we cannot find elsewhere, those that were released in art house cinemas, explains Philippe Zaghroun. It has never been the blockbuster, our battle horse, we have always fought over small auteur films. For years, we collected customers from other video clubs that were closing, and today our turnover is stable, it is not falling.”

The confinement, which blew up the cinema at home, could have dealt a fatal blow to the store. But paradoxically, this period of forced individualism has perhaps, on the contrary, reinforced the need for exchange, for dialogue. Théo Bancilhon, store employee and cinephile, could talk for hours about the slightest film he likes.

“Faced with a platform, the public, sometimes, does not necessarily know what to watch anymore, so it sees a bit of everything and anything. In any case, it is in a logic of consumption. When we come back here, we start the human, of the discussion, we consider cinema differently, it is no longer a kind of abstract product that we consume for entertainmentpleads Théo Bancilhon. A place like this is not just a place of resistance, it’s also a place that reminds us that other practices are possible, which seems to me fairer and more interesting.”

Konbini, boost and rejuvenation

Since 2018, another event has boosted store attendance, attracted new, younger customers, but also visits from tourists from all over the world and boosted its coffers a little: the sequence Video club of the Konbini site, filmed on its shelves, has seen stars such as Terry Gilliam, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, or more recently Brad Pitt among many others.