Not Your Grandma’s Movies
- 4 hours ago
- 7 min read
For this independent team of creatives, filmmaking isn’t about rigidity and rules - it’s about finding your people and making something unique together.
Written by Nicole Wloszek-Therens
Growing up in the 2000s, many of us were surrounded by our favorite films packed in the puffy plastic VHS containers. Watching movies was a tactile experience – lining the tape with the little plastic door and hearing the VCR player’s mechanical hum as the screen flickered to life. A familiar anti-piracy message flashed across: an FBI warning that “the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.”
Years later, movie nights often start with a doomscroll through an online streaming service. But in a generation that’s seemingly left the physical media of our childhoods behind, it remains the medium of choice for an emerging group of independent filmmakers called Grandma’s Basement.
A “band of misfits”
Grandma’s Basement Productions is a network of indie filmmakers and creatives based in Cleveland, largely composed of Cleveland State University students. Founded in 2024 by senior film students Caden Flannery and John Dickson, along with their friend Terence Mattera, the group has been breathing life into a dated media format and proving there’s room in the motion picture industry for the unconventional.
The name Grandma’s Basement is based on exactly that – treasures you might find in your grandma’s basement: cassettes, VHS, home videos, all reminders of a world that’s mostly passed us by. Director, writer and actor Dickson is quick to clarify – these treasures aren’t of the mainstream variety.
“Not the kind of thing you would see on a blockbuster movie screen in Hollywood,” he said, “kind of unique, quirky stuff would be in the basement.”
Their unorthodox shorts filmed around Cleveland have an old-school sentimentality to them – but they aren’t your grandma’s movies.
The 2025 DVD release from Grandma’s Basement of the “Bargain Bin Bundle” features three short films: “Geppetto’s Workshop,” “Late Night in the Inferno” and my personal favorite, “You Look Better in a Fake ID,” which features a “momentarily unhoused” cassette salesman who’s kicked out of the game by a “Cassette Boss” named “The Baba.”
Even the smallest of characters are eccentric, like an ex-actor on the hit show “Sesame Street Fighter” who eats soup with a fork. The plot lines are a bit abstract, a bit chaotic – exactly the way Grandma’s Basement intended them to be.
They’re doused in authenticity, unvarnished by the rules and regulations for how cinema is “supposed” to exist. A genuine passion and enjoyment for bringing an artistic vision to life together is salient throughout their work.
Now consisting of nine core members, one thing they all have in common is that they once felt like outsiders, trying to execute an offbeat artistic vision in a formulaic system. For them, Grandma’s Basement is more than a production company; it’s a DIY sanctuary for the strange.
“Band of misfits is kind of the definition,” Flannery said. “We’re just unconventional people who literally just found each other."
He said many industry professionals and academics focus on what’s trending in the film world or what’s considered safe. Grandma’s Basement has never cared to play it safe.
“We’re passionate about our art; it represents all of us here,” senior film student Hunter Hogan said. “I think people don’t like that because to them, this isn’t right, this isn’t the plan on how to make film. I think we go against the man, you could say.”
A resurgence of physical media
Short films and behind-the-scenes content from Grandma’s Basement are available on their YouTube channel, @grandmasbasementproductions. The group can also be found slinging VHS tapes and DVDs at events across Cleveland’s art community. It’s their preferred way to distribute productions, even in an era when many households moved on from the trusty DVD player years ago.
Jalen Hobson, a senior film student and Grandma’s Basement member, said he struggles to believe how many people have moved on from physical media – something he realized while selling copies of their three-film release.
“It keeps bothering me, how many people don’t have DVD players. It was, like, shocking,” Hobson said. “At home, I have like five.”
He was raised by an older father, and said that made him familiar with more outdated forms of media. VHS tapes weren’t relics, they were a commonplace part of everyday life.
“I don’t know, maybe I took that for granted,” Hobson said. “I just expect everyone else to appreciate it and know what it is.”
Grandma’s Basement wants their art to be something people can hold on to – literally.
“Since we’re in a world of non-physical media where everything is bought online and you don’t physically own it, one day it could technically just be taken from you,” Hobson said. “We just want our stuff to be with you.”
Much of the pro-physical media creed was instilled from the conception of Grandma’s Basement through founding member Terence Mattera. He shoots on a camcorder, handles all the analog conversions himself and is reachable only by flip phone.
Together, they take the charm of the past and turn it into something entirely different, something that hasn’t been seen before but still carries that nostalgic, feel-good energy.
Making a name
The filmmaking collective has made a name and a face for itself within Cleveland’s art community, starting at Negative Space, a nonprofit art gallery and performance venue founded by artist Gadi Zamir.
“I’m very happy they came into our lives,” Zamir said about the group. “It’s nice to see the next generation is being crafty, trying to do something other than TikTok and stuff like that.”
When Flannery started attending events in the space, it became a grassroots place to connect with fellow creatives. In May 2025, they hosted a movie night at the studio, showing one of the shorts they produced and partially shot at Negative Space.
“It really showed us how impactful community can be,” Flannery said.
Cleveland’s supportive creative community has become a driving force behind their work. Whether at a fashion show or an album-release party in an abandoned warehouse, their inspiration is drawn from the tangible culture happening around them.
“Cleveland is a big inspiration,” Flannery said. “We meet these different people through just being ourselves, and our brand kind of lends itself to that kind of culture.”
Stepping out from the screen and into events across Cleveland’s arts community is Johnny Bear, the anonymous mascot of the Grandma’s Basement universe.
Always suited up in a fuzzy bear suit that lands somewhere between cute and uncanny, Johnny is a reminder of their commitment to the bit. He embodies the raw, weird authenticity that runs through everything they create.
“It’s kind of a living art piece that represents all of us, where it’s okay to be weird,” Hogan said. “It’s okay to just do your own thing, like who cares? Just be weird. We all love weird.”
On the horizon
They’ve created a hands-on opportunity for themselves to hone their skills as young filmmakers with visions that don’t fit inside a class rubric. Their weird ideas are accepted and supported by a like-minded group of friends who help bring them to life.
“Collaboration is everything,” Dickson said. “You can’t make a movie by yourself.”
It’s an opportunity to express themselves – to share their creations with the world, to see their artistic visions on screen, and to hope they reach someone who connects with the stories they’re telling.
“For me personally, I think the goal is just to be appreciated for our art, to find that audience, people who love it and see it for what it is,” Hogan said. “I can die happy like that.”
Collaborating and creating together serves as an outlet for their inspiration. Their ideas have somewhere to go instead of waiting to be revealed.
“Without some of these projects and events, I feel like I would just be too stuck in my own head,” Hobson said. “Just thinking and thinking, but without doing something, the thoughts just stay in there.”
The filmmaking and production company’s existence also serves as a demonstration that when the world pushes someone to the margins for being “too different,” a new space can be built from scratch – one that embraces these diversities.
“We want to work with a lot of people, we want to include people who never got the chance to actually work on sets, or can’t get a friend group, or are just socially awkward,” Dickson said. “One of Grandma’s Basement’s strongest things that we do is giving people a chance to develop new skills and grow their abilities.”
Grandma’s Basement is a place within a rigid industry where it’s okay to be polarizing. And sometimes it works – two of the collective’s short films will be showcased at Cleveland’s Short. Sweet. Film Fest. in March.
“Not everyone’s gonna like your stuff,” Hogan said. “Not everyone’s gonna like working with you for whatever reason, but at the end of the day, you have to learn to toughen up.”
Toughen up, and persist.
“Keep going. No matter what happens, make what you want to make,” Hogan said. “Prove yourself. Just make art.”
A few new films are on the horizon for Grandma’s Basement, with scripts already in motion. They can be found on Instagram @grandmasbasement for more information on upcoming projects.
More Grandma's Basement photos and video:
