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Videomatica

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Beginning January 2014, UBC Library users will have access to a venerable collection of films acquired from Videomatica, a long-loved video rental store that opened in 1983 in Vancouver.  The film collection, valued at $1.7M, includes feature films, literary adaptations, cult and art films, foreign films from more than 75 countries, Canadian works and selections from the Vancouver International Film Festival. In total, library users will be able to access 28,000 DVDs, 4,000 VHS titles and 900 Blu-Rays.

The collection is housed at UBC’s Koerner Library with more than 5,000 duplicates available at UBC’s Department of Theatre and Film. SFU Library received around 2,800 documentaries from the collection.

“After spending three decades building a unique film library and the better part of a year trying to preserve it, how wonderfully rewarding it is to know the interests of both the public and film students will be served with the collection finding a home at UBC and SFU,” said Videomatica co-founder Graham Peat at the initial announcement of the acquisition.

Peat and Videomatica co-founder Brian Bosworth are both former UBC students and met several years after attending university while working in television production. Videomatica closed as a film rental store in 2011 and has since moved its sales operation to Zulu Records in the Vancouver Neighbourhood of Kitsilano.