The video rental shop is back: Club VHS opens at Eye

Back to the Future

It was not even a year ago that childhood friends Eli and Ismay (both born in 1992, the heyday of the video cassette – the DVD had yet to be invented) found themselves on a long car journey, sighing that they fancied doing something fun again. "Do you miss the video shop as much as I do?" Ismay asks Eli. She has been quietly harbouring the idea of opening a video shop for some time. It has come up between the two of them every now and then over the years, but has never amounted to more than a passing joke.

Ismay: "I kept running into the problem that I couldn't watch so many of the films I wanted to see anywhere. I'd never built up a DVD collection of my own, and I was exhausted by the endless scrolling through streaming services when I was at home on the sofa." Eli: "And the idea of a video shop, it just makes you happy, doesn't it?"

Mission: Impossible

Eli and Ismay have known each other since secondary school and both studied Media and Culture. After various adventures and different projects in the cultural sector and the world of sustainability, they now run Club VHS together. In August 2025, they hastily moved into the then-empty Brughuis at the Tolhuistuin, after informally asking the director whether they could do "something fun" there. They were given the go-ahead within a fortnight. "They asked for our business plan," laughs Eli. "But all we had was a good idea and barely one box of DVDs. We had to cobble everything together."

Although Club VHS is named after the video cassette – by far Eli's favourite format ("that shaking and crackling, that intro tune!") – the rental collection consists largely of DVDs. They built it up through second-hand DVD sites and online marketplaces, including a series of purchases from what Ismay describes as "men with a garage full of DVDs and the thought: 'one day someone might want these.' Well, there we were, finally pulling up."

The Searchers

The stock has grown steadily since, largely through donations. "Someone even drove all the way from the east of the country on a whim with three shopping bags full," they recall. And an increasing number of filmmakers who want their work added to the collection have also started finding their way to them. Ismay thinks of two older gentlemen who found an encyclopaedia about films in the library and came specially to donate it. The collection now probably numbers more than 3,000 titles, she thinks. "The move to Eye is a good moment to count everything properly."

The audience is growing too. But what makes a video shop a success in an era when almost everything can be streamed at home without any effort? Part of it lies in the unstreamable offering, because far from everything is actually available online, Ismay and Eli explain. "There are so many films that are only briefly available – or not at all – on Dutch streaming services. I discovered that when I wanted to watch Lost in Translation. A genuinely well-known film, but it was nowhere to be found. Because the catalogue is constantly changing, nothing feels permanent anymore. It can disappear overnight and someone else decides that for you. Having something physical means you're in control."

The NeverEnding Story

"What's also great," says Eli, "is that we now come across so many films we'd never heard of. They're not always good, but that's part of the fun. We can't manage to watch everything that comes in, but we almost always go home with a bag full."

On Letterboxd they maintain a list of unstreamable films they would still like to add to the collection. "There are more than 450 of them. And we want as many films as possible that feature video shops – or even revolve around them – like Be Kind, Rewind and The Watermelon Woman. We've got Clerks as well, and there's a video shop scene in The Holiday. There's one with Mads Mikkelsen we're still missing, Bleeder. And we're still looking for Ghost World."

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The other side of the coin is the near-suffocating, endless catalogue on streaming platforms. Eli: "It's the disposability of it all. Film loses its value because there's just so much of it. If you don't like something, you can switch to something else straight away. In the past you chose – and watched – a film much more deliberately. It sat at home with you, you might watch it three times before taking it back." Ismay adds: "You might have had twenty films at home that you watched endlessly, you knew them all by heart. Holding something physical, you feel so much more connected to it. Choosing a film becomes a physical act."

Asked about the most extraordinary film in their collection, Ismay answers: "I think La planète sauvage, a wonderfully strange animation full of social and political themes. It won the Jury Prize at Cannes in the seventies. A regular customer of ours collected it specially in Paris, from someone who had been involved in the production."

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

They also attribute the enthusiasm with which they are received to the physical space they occupy with their shop. "When we had just opened in the Brughuis, we organised a neighbourhood drinks. All sorts of local residents turned up, a really diverse mix of ages and backgrounds. It gave such a lovely sense of community," says Eli. Ismay: "We can already see that Club VHS is so much more than just a film rental. We really want to bring together people who share a love of film. It should be a place to come together, to talk about films – we want to bring back a bit of fun and joy." Eli again: "It's so wonderful that film is genuinely for everyone, and so is a video shop. We'd like to expand eventually with talks and events. We also think we can teach younger generations something about the times in which certain films were made or are set."

It is a natural partnership, Club VHS and Eye Filmmuseum. Eye preserves film heritage; Club VHS rescues films from oblivion. Ismay: "Our main goal is to get lost, forgotten, unstreamable films back out into the world. Eye also conserves and screens. We see ourselves as an extension of that: we bring physical films all the way into people's bedrooms and living rooms."

Asked what Ismay and Eli hope visitors to Eye will take away when they step into Club VHS, they answer with a laugh and in unison: "DVDs!" But also: "A touch of nostalgia – or perhaps an entirely new experience. Many young people have never set foot in a video shop. Everyone is welcome to browse the shelves themselves, but they can also come for a chat, ask for recommendations, or simply hang about."

Almost Famous

Well-known faces have also started finding their way to Club VHS. Author Thomas Heerma van Voss recently held the launch of his book (about video cassettes) there, and they regularly invite more or less well-known guests to appear in short Instagram videos talking about their favourite films. And when they heard that Tilda Swinton had been a regular presence at Eye during her exhibition Ongoing, Eli decided to be bold. "Noa Johannes, film journalist and presenter for VPRO Cinema and NPO Start, was visiting us and mentioned she had just interviewed Tilda and that she was still in Eye. So I just walked in and stumbled over my words at her: 'Ehm, yes, so we opened a completely female-led video rental store, it would be so great if you could stop by.' She said she thought it was 'amaaazing', but sadly we never saw her again. We prefer to think we just missed her."

Club VHS opens its doors on 21 May in the space of the former Eye Shop and will be open at least every Thursday and Friday from 16:00 to 20:00. For eight euros a month you can borrow films without limit; four at a time, for a fortnight. Non-members pay €2.50 per film, and those without a DVD player at home can hire one from five euros. Anyone who wants to browse the collection in advance can take a peek on Instagram. Under the heading 'Club VHS Favs', visitors recommend personal favourites from the collection.