Thanks for this.repeat wrote:Couldn't find this mentioned here yet: a new Kickstarter project from American Genre Film Archive in association with Something Weird Video.
A poster at Rock Shock Pop posted some further information from Lisa (Vraney's widow)
I think this sounds great. SWV is a great endeavour and although their DVDs are always jam-packed (I think Vinegar Syndrome's output is sadly lacking in the crazy short film bonus department), I never thought their encodes (on top of frequently poor prints - although I'm happy to forgive this) were up to much.Hey Weirdos! We have some very exciting news! Something Weird has been working with AGFA (American Genre Film Archive) and Alamo Drafthouse on co-branding, releasing and preserving 10 of our most popular films from the SW archive, theatrically and in high-definition! Alamo CEO Tim League has been a longtime fan and admirer our founder, Mike Vraney, and Something Weird. They have already acquired some original film elements from SW (which will be forever preserved in their impressive archive) and plan to screen them theatrically at Alamo Drafthouse movie theatres. The next step is to transfer the films in 4K. For this they will be launching a Kickstarter to fund a film scanner so that they can do their own transfers in-house. The Kickstarter campaign is active and I hope you all participate!
Before everyone freaks out, let us say that, even before Mike got sick and died, it was fully his intention to eventually sell the company to the highest bidder. Basically, he was done after Friedman died. Mike wanted to pursue other interests (mainly collecting more stuff and publishing coffee table books of his paper archives.) He knew that being the custodian of literally hundreds of tons of film is an overwhelming responsibility. But unfortunately, Mike died before we could find the right home for SW film archive. And he left this task in his widow, Lisa Petrucci's, fully capable hands.
Something Weird will continue chugging along as it has been selling DVDs and Downloads. Eventually we hope to find just the right home(s) for our massive film archive.
So show your love, support and enthusiasm for Something Weird and exploitation cinema by contributing to AGFA's Kickstarter!