Earlier this year, Nick Prueher was faced with an unlikely problem. His Found Footage Festival was booked to go on at the same time, in the same building, as the Found Magazine tour. Although both rockstars of the genre, the events draw a niche group of people who live for finding dusty suitcases full of other people’s embarrassing love letters and shaky home videos. Rather than compete, he approached Found mag’s Davy Rothbart, and they combined the events.
“It was like meeting a long-lost brother that you didn’t know you had,” says Prueher of Rothbart. “I was like, ‘Someone’s into the same weird hobbies? Did you ever get that dust in your lungs from handling found things? Yeah? I’ve had that, too!’ But of course if you feel like you’re brothers with someone, the natural instinct is to want to fight them.”
Which brings us to this weekend’s “Found Vs. Found” show at Johnny Brenda’s. This time out, Prueher and fellow Found Footage host Joe Pickett will pit their best clips of videos rescued from thrift stores and Dumpsters against the outrageous to-do lists and heartbreaking birthday cards that Rothbart and his brother Peter assemble into Found Magazine.
“It’s like a showdown featuring four of the biggest p—s you’ll ever meet,” explains Prueher of the show. “It’s as close to bloodsport as NPR listeners are going to get.”
Who should we bet on?
The Found Footage Festival has some real gems, from ’80s workout videos to the wildly popular “Winnebago Man” clip, which inspired a documentary on the very fiery RV salesman. That said, Prueher knows he has serious competition: “They definitely have some good stuff, plus Peter plays the guitar and is good looking. All we’ve got are our videos we found in a Dumpster.”
