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All About Us

AroVideo is a quality film resource with a comprehensive catalogue of films to rent and purchase, based in Wellington, New Zealand.

Our passion is collecting and curating film, and our pleasure is sharing it with our film-loving customers.

The late eighties were a particularly sorry era for cinephiles in New Zealand. New censorship laws virtually wiped out the availability of anything mildly provocative, stimulating or historically important. If you weren’t interested in the recent works of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bette Midler, one was forced to get excited over a badly dubbed copy of Diva.

It seemed the only way we were going to see ‘good film’ was to dedicate a business to it—Viva la revolution! The Aro St. Video Shop was established in September 1989 at 79 Aro Street—essentially a flat with a bedroom-sized ‘shop’ on the street front.

We opened the doors with 180 hand-picked tapes. And while in those first few months we didn’t exactly do a roaring trade, it was remarked on by that handful of customers (you know who you are) that we “didn’t stock any crap!” By the way, the best renting titles in the summer of ’89 were I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing and the Twin Peaks pilot movie.

Outgrowing this tiny space only eighteen months later, we moved up the road to no. 97, occupying the ground floor of this newly-restored, turn-of-the-century retail ‘villa’. In 1996, we needed more room still, so took over the second floor to occupy the whole building, where we’ve been ever since.

In February 1997, we went online and extended our courier rental service nationwide. In 2003 the website was relaunched with new features; improving our online film catalogue and enabling secure shopping.

We now stock over 24,000 rental films. Our service has extended to selling video and DVD locally and internationally; providing you with the finest choice of films to call your own.

With over twenty-eight years of service, our philosophy is the same as it was on day one—quality film and quality service.