For Your Eyes Only

Screening Selection

Film Info

Film Year: 2023

Film Duration: 12 min

Country: United Kingdom

Language: English

Director

Sergio Angot

Film Category
Synopsis

For Your Eyes Only is a short documentary that chronicles the end of the homonymous videoshop in London. It unfolds over the course of the shop’s final days and is narrated through the voices of its most loyal and regular customers as well as John’s: a local legend beloved by the community who worked at the shop during its last 8 years. It is the emotional closing chapter of a store that is reputed to have been London’s last rental videostore, an event that was reported on ITV and VICE amongst others. First opened in 1998, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY was an enterprise that spanned four decades, but that was driven into oblivion by the realities of a streaming-obsessed society, as well as other dramatic events which included a car smashing through the shop’s window. Its absence leaves an open wound in the local community who grew to see the shop’s staff as an extension of their families. A closure symptomatic of a city that has morphed into a ruthless grinding machine that relegates small independent businesses to history books.