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Found VHS Tapes Unveil Strange And Awkward Truths

The founders of the Found Footage Festival, Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett.
Courtesy of Nick Prueher
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Joe Pickett (left) and Nick Prueher (right
The founders of the Found Footage Festival, Joe Pickett (left) and Nick Prueher (right).

Friends Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett’s fascination with VHS tapes started in elementary school. The two would scour garage sales and thrift stores for odd and entertaining videos and then head home to host viewing parties for their friends. 

Despite the evolution of digital media, their fascination with the old-school medium never waned. In 2004 they started a traveling film festival to show off the wide cross section of humanity captured on these found tapes. Found Footage Festival co-founder Nick Prueher speaks with host Frank Stasio about some of the societal trends he and Pickett have pieced together by collecting and watching endless tapes, like the rise of satanism concerns in the 80s and 90s.

The Found Footage Festival comes to Raleigh’s Kings on Thursday, Dec. 14 at 8:30 p.m.

Laura Pellicer is a digital reporter with WUNC’s small but intrepid digital news team.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.