Sean David Christensen x Vidiots

Earlier this spring, I stopped by Vidiots, LA’s home for preserving and celebrating the art of cinema through community-centric screenings and special events. When they opened in the summer of 2023, I gifted them a signed poster of my original artwork inspired by the cult classic Mommie Dearest. Celebrating both the film and Mother’s Day this year, Vidiots sponsored a special giveaway of my postcards to the audience. It was a joy giving back to this amazing organization and reconnecting with my friend, Executive Director Maggie Mackay, a beacon for the arts in Los Angeles and such a force for equity in the film industry.

Special thanks to my friend and photographer Dario Griffin for capturing these memories for me.

More about Vidiots: A one-of-a-kind hub for film lovers, filmmakers, and everyone curious about cinema, Vidiots is dedicated to inspiring human interaction around film through preserving, growing, and providing access to our diverse DVD, BluRay, and rare VHS collection, showcasing the work of emerging, master, and underrepresented artists, and producing unique and affordable film events and vital education programs.

May 11th, 2025: Artist Sean David Christensen with Vidiots Executive Director Maggie Mackay next to his framed original movie poster design inspired by the film Mommie Dearest. (Photo by Dario Griffin)

Vidiots - Reinventing video store culture for the 21st Century

Growing up, every Friday was “Blockbuster Day.” It was a treat at the end of the school week’s rainbow, my mom would pick me up from my after-school program and we’d round Glendale Ave. towards 16th street, the last of the evening’s sun glinting across the dashboard. Our destination was the Blockbuster Video across from the Shogun Express and Rainbow Cleaners (the lone survivor in the complex, today), to take home a tape to illuminate the blue glow of my parent’s television set, melting my childhood worries. Admittedly, I don’t create that same type of time, now that I’m older. The ritual has changed. Perhaps it’s also due to the changing landscape of the places I find movies, which aren’t places at all. Streaming services have made the “trip to the video store” as convenient as clicking a button, across a list of choices with no horizon.

I don’t celebrate “Blockbuster Day” anymore, but I do miss the aisles of tapes that were as tall as redwoods when I was young, and the joy of getting lost and not minding that I was lost. I would turn over boxes in my hands, wondering if the glossy pictures on its covers were enough to reward my faith in handing them to my mom and asking, “Can we rent these?”

When my dear friend Maggie Mackay, Executive Director of Vidiots Foundation, shared the news that a Vidiots re-launch would be taking place in 2020, I was honored to design this piece of commemorative art. After shuttering their original space in 2017, Vidiots will be returning to Los Angeles with almost 10,000 square feet of educational and entertainment space, awakening my childhood memories of losing one’s self in the aisles. Maggie says it best: “A one-of-kind hub for film lovers, filmmakers, and everyone curious about cinema, Vidiots is dedicated to inspiring human interaction around film through preserving, growing, and providing access to its diverse DVD, BluRay, and rare VHS collection, showcasing the work of emerging and master artists, and producing unique film events and vital education programs.”

2020 can’t arrive soon enough.

Lords of Dogtown + Catherine Hardwicke + Vidiots + Film Powered

I was honored to provide artwork to Vidiots Foundation and Film Powered for their screening of Catherine Hardwicke's Lords of Dogtown at The Theatre at Ace Hotel DTLA last week. Jen McGowan, founder of Film Powered, describes her organization as: "...a skill-sharing site for professional women in the entertainment industry created to increase the skills & contacts of women in the industry, strengthening our community." Together with teachers and guest speakers, Film Powered provides energetic spaces to share ideas, sharpen skills and discuss important films that raise the profile of working women in Hollywood. 

Lords of Dogtown by Sean David Christensen

I've been a long-time admirer of Hardwicke's work, particularly the clarity of Thirteen (2003), a semi-autobiographical portrait of "Tracy" (Evan Rachel Wood), a 13-year-old girl struggling to find her mooring amidst the snares of peer pressure and rudderless adults in Los Angeles. Lords of Dogtown, her kinetic portrait of LA skateboarding culture in the early 1970s, was the film that brought together the women of Film Powered and Vidiots, and reminded me of the importance of community engagement through art, and its greatest gift it can bestow those who participate: empowerment. 

This week, if you can, I encourage you to find a public space where such stories are being shared with those who value their places in our society. Live music, comedy, theatre, film, spoken word, wherever you can find voices expressing themselves, seek them out. Stories are fragile things when left alone, but they're strengthened by those who gather and listen, and more still, by those brave enough to share them.