Movies for the people

CinéCité owner snubs the corporate
model of film rental for unlimited
rentals and no late fees

by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Muriel Abraham

Age: 29

Occupation: Proprietor of CinéCité

Bio: Not so many years ago, this unassuming NDG gal was getting her Master’s degree in geography at McGill while contributing film reviews to the McGill Daily, thinking that a fabulous career in journalism might be just the thing for her. After awhile though, Muriel decided she “wasn’t much of a writer,” and, while visiting London, England back in 2004, stumbled upon a video/DVD rental store with a business model that totally fried her burger, giving her the idea of doing something similar here in Montreal. Über-motivated and armed with a plan, she spent the next several years getting it together to finally open CinéCité (www.cinecite.ca) last December, NDG’s latest and most fab video/DVD rental joint at 5528A Sherbrooke W., right across the street from NDG Park. “The thing about CinéCité is that we have a membership plan. A basic membership costs $15 a month for unlimited rentals. And there are never any late fees.”

How an energized Muriel went about making her CinéCité dream a reality: First she scored a gig at another DVD rental outlet to learn the ropes and worked there for a year and a half. Then she took a free course for burgeoning female entrepreneurs via an organization called Compagnie F (compagnie-f.org) “which was great, showing me how to create a business plan and flesh out my ideas. For example, one thing I did through the course was take a survey in three different neighborhoods learning about people’s DVD rental habits and asking if an outlet like CinéCité would appeal to them. People overwhelmingly said it would. Another extremely beneficial thing was they informed me about all these grants I could apply for and how best to do it. I don’t think I would have been able to open this place had I not secured these grants and loans they told me about.”

Something Muriel’s survey told her: “Everybody—okay, almost everybody—rents movies. Something like 80–90 per cent of the population spends about $20 a month on them, and the majority still rents them from video/DVD stores.”

Is that what gave her the courage to put her heart, soul and savings into a mode of film distribution everyone expects to be obsolete in a few years, what with digital distribution increasingly being all the rage? “Yes, it was one thing. So much of this business is about selection and service. And that’s why the Blockbuster/Videotron model isn’t doing well anymore. But CinéCité is very different. One great thing about our membership model is that there’s no financial risk involved when you take out movies you’re not so sure about. And we have better selection than most video stores. Sure, we’ve got blockbusters, but we’ve also got documentaries, foreign films, French and Québécois movies, as well as all these older, repertory-type films. And the vibe in here is kind of unique as well.”

The approximate number of titles in her inventory that have never, ever, been rented. “A couple hundred maybe, out of the roughly 2,500 titles we have in stock.”

Childhood ambition: To become Jacques Cousteau.

Last book read: Crackpot, by John Waters.

Musical preferences: Nina Simone, Cat Power, Feist.

Words of wisdom: “It’s the sick oyster that possesses the pearl.”

Comments: dimwit@hdot.net