Dean Brandt (foreground) and Andrew McKeon (background)
photo by Jae Ruberto

Open three years this March in the back of the Bloomfield Crazy Mocha Coffee Company, Dreaming Ant is Pittsburgh's only "independent, international, gay, lesbian, and documentary all-DVD rental store." When the movie shop was just a twinkle in his eye, Dean Brandt, an avid-to-perhaps-even-obsessed cinema fan, had just rented his first movie on DVD and realized there was "no going back" to VHS. He quickly went through all the DVDs at his favorite independent rental store and wanted more, but the selection for DVDs at the time was very limited. Indie stores had trouble keeping up with the corporate chains. Many customers expected newer flicks on DVD while many others still only owned VCRs, so big and small rental shops alike had to purchase both VHS and DVD versions of all their movies, putting independent shops at a distinct disadvantage. Brandt didn't go into the DVD rental business to out-compete other independent shops, he says, but rather to provide a selection of DVDs comparable to the existing indie stores' VHS inventories - full of movies rarely, if ever, available in the corporate chains.

"A major difference between big corporate stores and Dreaming Ant," says Brandt, "is that Blockbuster [for example] isn't interested in carrying a movie, no matter how good it is, that is only going to get rented one or two times and then sit on the shelf. "At Dreaming Ant, it's very important to Brandt, and his single employee Andrew McKeon, to make good movies available. "We carry Hollywood movies. People think that because we're an independent store that we hate Hollywood movies. Some good movies come out of Hollywood," explains Brandt, and more often than not, the Hollywood movies tend to bring in funds that enable Dreaming Ant to purchase more eclectic, lesser known, and more difficult to find independent, international, gay, lesbian, and documentary DVDs. Dreaming Ant's purchasing decisions are less driven by the "bottom line," according to Brandt, and more focused on making a wide selection of good and hard- to-find films available. The first year, Brandt said, the store stayed open on nearly his passion alone due to this philosophy.

That's not to say that the "quality" movies stay on the shelves for the occasional rentals and the Hollywood flicks keep the doors open. As much as the selection of movies at Dreaming Ant reflects Brandt and McKeon's personal tastes, Dreaming Ant's members can be thanked for the excellent variety as well. Dreaming Ant is known for its extensive gay and lesbian section for example - something you would be hard pressed to find at a corporate chain, not just for its size, but also for its prominence. Or maybe lack of prominence might be more appropriate, as the gay and lesbian section is neither back in a dark corner somewhere nor showcased out in front. It's treated as any other section replete with quality movies that Dreaming Ant believes is important to have available for people. The store also carries (and encourages submission of*) works made by local filmmakers, frequently offering them to members for free. In fact, when Dreaming Ant used to host free movie screenings on Sundays (before the borrowed movie projector moved to Michigan with its owner), Brandt used to show locally produced shorts before each feature length film. In addition to his love for Asian cinema (which is immediately clear upon entering Dreaming Ant through its Taylor Street entrance), Brandt is also a big fan of documentaries. This passion, manifested in Dreaming Ant's significant documentary section, has alone attracted many of the store's Bloomfield customers. While all the movie sections have grown since the store's opening in 2003, it didn't hurt the political documentary section when customers started expecting the newest and hottest documentaries to appear on their favorite movie rental store's shelves. Recently, for example, Dreaming Ant "ordered more copies of Robert Greenwald's Wal-Mart: the high cost of low price DVD than Meet the Fockers.

When director Michael Moore & Co. contacted independent movie rental stores all across the country in the fall of 2004 to solicit support for his Fahrenheit 9/11 movie, and more specifically to encourage store owners to offer free rentals of the flick, Dreaming Ant owner Dean Brandt had not yet recouped his costs on the copies he purchased. Understanding that this was a thinly veiled marketing ploy for Moore himself and not being in a financial position to comply, Brandt offered to rent all of his political documentaries that had recouped their costs for free during the week before the '04 elections, in what he intended to be an effort to inspire political thought and discussion amongst movie-goers. Moore's group instead said they would send Dreaming Ant a couple additional copies of Fahrenheit 9/11, free of charge, as incentive to offer free rentals for their film only. Dreaming Ant hosted one-day free rentals of the film for the week before Nov 2nd, and currently carries a number of Moore's movies, which are very popular with Dreaming Ant customers. But if you asked him to help you choose between Fahrenheit 9/11 and Control Room (a look at the media presentation of the war in Iraq from Al Jazeera's point of view), Brandt just might advise Control Room for your viewing pleasure. "I would never purposely discourage a patron from renting a Michael Moore movie," says Brandt, and agrees that movies like Moore's are important. Nonetheless, Brandt's tastes lean toward a different style of documentary presentation: whereas Moore tends to produce movies utilizing "suspicious editing techniques," Brandt admits he prefers more level productions such as Noujaim's Control Room and Achbar, Bakan and Abbott' The Corporation that present both sides more evenly, permitting viewers to draw their own conclusions.

"I always hear that you're supposed to be liberal when you're young and more conservative as you get older. Somehow, I ended up backwards," says Brandt. Part of the reason, he admits, has to do with his customers. All kinds of people come into Dreaming Ant, but Brandt finds himself engaged most frequently in conversation - when it's not about movies, that is - with quite a number of politically-inclined movie renters. "There are a lot of politically-interested and - active, articulate people who come into the store," says Brandt. The son of community organizer Susan Brandt and grandson of Marjorie Matson - one of Pittsburgh's prominent early civil rights attorneys, Brandt confesses that his conversations with his customers have contributed more to shaping his ever more liberal views than his family and even his DVD diet have.

Brandt says though he occasionally thinks of expanding, he wouldn't dream of leaving Bloomfield. Though skeptical at first (early plans placed Dreaming Ant at the Shadyside Crazy Mocha), Brandt considers his location inside the Bloomfield coffee house as an "incredibly happy accident." He also admits that he opened the store for "basically selfish reasons" - he wanted a wider selection of movies on DVD. And in Pittsburgh, and especially Bloomfield, Brandt and Dreaming Ant have found a community who has embraced movies with the same passion and enthusiasm as he has. In a country where it seems there's a Blockbuster or Hollywood Video (or both!) on nearly every corner, rental stores like Dreaming Ant are a rare find indeed. But when you're in 'business' for passion over profit, having a store that serves your personal and community interests doesn't have to be just a dream.

-- Bridget Colvin

If you have a local film, feature, short, documentary, etc. that you would like to submit to Dreaming Ant, contact info@dreamingant.com, visit www.dreamingant.com, or stop in at 4525 Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield for more details. ©

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