“The cinema”, maintains Jaume Ripoll, “It is a solitary experience that is enjoyed in company.” The phrase comes right after a “After all”, from one of those alfinyalcabos that place the reader next to the one who writes, that turn the pages of a book into a kind of confessional, an intimate meeting place, a shared secret and, where appropriate, even a sort of double-meaning atonement. It is time for all of us to forgive ourselves for the sins of our youth. The phrase appears when Videoclub. The movies that changed our lives (Penguin Random House) is just taking its first steps. Its author, who is debuting as a book writer, summarizes in a few paragraphs what goes from the very young discovery and by the hand of the parents in the Mallorcan ABC cinema of “a hairy vagina projected on a 12-meter screen” ( that is seen in Almodóvar’s Atame) at the closing of that same room nine years later.
In between, the emergence of private television, the rise and fall of video stores, the transformation of cinema at the gates of the Internet… When the first thing happened, it was in 1990. At that time, the author’s father ran two cinemas, he was owner of five video stores and was in charge of the commercial management of up to three independent distributors. In April 1999, while the old cinema was closing, his father died at the age of 55 and the son, who was studying to be a filmmaker at the time, became the heir to a business, of a passion and a way of being in the world. Without remedy. «My father’s death», recalls Ripoll, «hastened everything up and, without a doubt, made it easier for me to decide not to make films. At that time, I have to take charge of the Manga representation [una de las distribuidoras] and I do not prolong the agony of believing myself a director».
The career of a filmmaker was coming to an end and who knows if that of a visionary hadn’t begun. Indeed, Jaume Ripoll is the man behind of the movie, the platform that took its first steps in 2008 when piracy could control everything and that can now boast of being the best refuge not only for militant cinephilia but also for cinema understood, once again, as a solitary experience that can be enjoyed by all . “We always understood the platform from an inclusive point of view in which all the audiences could fit so that whoever goes to see the Sherwood series ends up approaching directors like Suzuki, Wiseman or Paulo Rocha… Or not”, he says. The speaker recognizes that his work largely consists of transferring his experience as a video store employee to what is still another video store, but Babel, with a catalog of 10,000 films and close to 500 series.
Let’s say that the book, like Ripoll’s own conversation, carries with it all the knowledge accumulated from the Formica shelves of the Casablanca video store, the last of the family that was left standing. There he specialized in reading the tastes of the clientele, in recommending prodigious youth as an infallible resource, in bringing those who doubted closer to the films that would give meaning to their uncertainties (we are talking about sex), in debating soundtracks with unusual passion… Perhaps there, and without him knowing it, Filmin was born. «The truth», he reflects, «is that the platform is an anomaly in Europe due to a thousand factors starting with the generosity of the distributors who trusted us. But it is true that we have always had the focus on us. At first, because we were the first; then, when the big brands arrived with Netflix at the forefront, because we were the Spaniards, and, finally, when there are a thousand platforms, because we are the independent ones».
Ripoll insists on recovering for himself and his loved ones, for all those who spent (we spent) entire afternoons lost in corridors full of covers where Ingmar Bergman came from shortly before Cannibal Holocaust, the privilege of memory. And, hand in hand with him, what could be called recognition, or even prestige. «There is much talk about the abundance of streaming it leads to impatience and, actually, it leads more to restlessness”, he comments in relation to those nostalgic for effort in times of scarcity before the internet. And he adds: «It is an unreasoned prejudice that the cinema spectator is better and is more informed than that of a platform». But if Ripoll has invested all his efforts in something, it is in, as has already been said, memory, memory as a shared act. “It’s weird, but if you walk into a house full of DVDs, the first thing you think of is a geek. If, on the other hand, there are books, one thinks of a cultured person. A video store does not share the imaginary of a bookstore out of simple prejudice », he insists.