Xav Leplae has always kept his finger on the latest in film technology. He remembers when DVDs first came out as the next big thing in home entertainment and the VHS before then. Back when he first began studying film, Leplae was fascinated by the possibilities of early pre-camcorder video technology, and in the current debate between digital and film, he’s far from a film purist.

Yet even with that interest in the newest technology, Leplae has quickly found himself as the owner of one of the city’s living relics: Riverwest Film & Video, a movie rental shop located at 824 E. Center St.

Hundreds of DVD and Blu-ray cases line the walls for movies old and new, new blockbuster hits and Criterion Collection classics. Even while surrounded by the latest films and still modern technology, wandering around the store has a charmingly retro vibe. The discs themselves are in the back, filed in countless paper sleeves in a large organized box behind the counter. For a dollar a day per movie, Leplae rents out the films, keeping track of who has what with a system of index cards and rubber bands.

It’s an experience both familiar and oddly foreign – especially when most renting and perusing nowadays is done looking at a computer screen, the options mostly tailored to one’s particular tastes and interests.

"I think there’s something about being able to look at objects in front of you and having the sort of happenstance of stumbling across something," Leplae said. "I think people come to a video store, and they don’t know what they may encounter. When you look at Netflix, it’s a different kind of exploration."

Leplae opened Riverwest Film & Video on Locust Street in October 1997. As filmmaker himself, Leplae focused the store on all the products a young director would need: film stock, editing equipment, lenses, cameras and other necessary gear. In 2003, however, Leplae’s friend and fellow Milwaukee filmmaker Frankie Latina encouraged him to open up a store of his own. Leplae agreed to give it a shot, albeit reluctantly. Even over a decade ago, he could already see the streaming revolution coming on the horizon.

"Netflix was just starting around 2003 when I started my video store, so I was already aware of where things were going," Leplae said. "Just reading trade journals and things like that, I was aware that the future was digital downloading. Another thing was just observing audio. Whatever happens to audio normally happens to video maybe a decade later."

In 2006, Leplae moved Riverwest Film & Video to its current spot on Center Street, a better location with less car traffic and more foot traffic. The impending digital revolution, however, showed no signs of slowing.

"I already knew that digital downloading was going to surpass DVDs," Leplae said, "but I also knew that people take a long time to get out of the habit of using a certain medium. The main thing is to be willing to accept that change is happening, and I’m pretty open to that."

Eventually, that change officially happened. The streaming meteor shower of Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Prime and the like killed off most rental stores nationwide. Even the chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video that previously feasted on the defenseless independent shops back in the late ’90s and early ’00s went extinct or at least highly endangered.

Meanwhile, Riverwest Film & Video continues to play the role of cockroach, slyly managing to survive the digital apocalypse. Leplae, however, admits that it’s getting harder.

"It’s hard for me as a business owner to keep up with the change," Leplae said. "If I was running a coffee shop since 1997, nothing will have changed really other than maybe you need Wi-Fi in your establishment or you need to be on Facebook. Everything I sell is constantly in a state of flux or change."

While Riverwest Film & Video still has customers, the number, according to Leplae, is constantly getting smaller and smaller. Film and film supply equipment, the store’s origins, make up a large portion of the business as well. However, just like with video renting, the industry’s whiplash-inducing shift to digital has put a dent into sales. Along with side jobs teaching at MIAD and offering digital transfers, Leplae manages to make enough to keep the shop afloat, but the struggle is real.

"At this point," Leplae admitted, "it’s almost a labor of love to keep it going."

The shop, however, isn’t quite ready to admit defeat and fall in with Blockbuster and the rest of Netflix’s brick-and-mortar victims. Leplae has some plans for the present and future to keep the store alive and relevant.

Recently, Riverwest Film & Video turned one of the front windows into The What Shop, a store within the store that others can use to display and sell crafts and art. Meanwhile, the newly FCC-licensed non-profit Riverwest Radio, which currently broadcasts out of one of the shop’s front windows and where Leplae co-hosts a weekly show with local film icon Mark Borchardt, is expected to add a studio and take over most – if not all – of the space by 2016. The video rental aspect of the store would then likely serve as a side component of Riverwest Radio.

"It’s an evolving situation, and I personally treat this place a little bit like a laboratory of sorts," Leplae said. "I don’t mind trying out new things and seeing what happens."

An additional idea Leplae is toying with is transitioning Riverwest Film & Video into more of a video public library, featuring a rarified collection of movies that perhaps online streaming services and Redbox don’t offer.

"Netflix is good, but there are a lot of movies missing," he said. "I’m actually surprised at how dysfunctional it is considering how many people have migrated over to it. There are a lot of times when I run into a roadblock – more than I would expect. I thought that you could get, like, 80,000 titles or something like that, but it doesn’t work that way.

"They’re trying to do something very challenging, and I think that sometimes people will throw out the baby with the bathwater," he continued. "Look at Redbox. If you go to Redbox, the amount of titles that you can pick from is so limited – maybe a couple hundred – almost all new releases and a lot of them are garbage. Not because everything this year has been garbage; 90 percent of what came out in the ’50s was garbage too, but we’ve been able to synthesize the best movies, the cream of the cream. When you use something like Redbox, you’re really limiting the scope of what you can watch."

That’s all in addition to complaints in recent years of Netflix cropping films into different aspect ratios, altering the images the director worked hard and intended to show without telling the viewer.

Even with these potential changes, Leplae intends to maintain Riverwest Film & Video’s essential mission instituted all the way back in its days on Locust Street.

"I felt like Milwaukee needed a place, a central location, where you could get together, work on film stuff and meet other people working on film stuff," Leplae said. "It started that way, and it’s always been more than just a retail establishment; it functions as a kind of community."

So far, that motto – plus some frugal business planning – has kept Riverwest Film & Video alive, waiting for the moment when old becomes new once again.

"I’m surprised sometimes because young people now are starting to discover the nostalgic value of, say, VHS," Leplae said. "Whenever something changes, something gets lost, and people become nostalgic for that later on. That’s why I’m not in a rush to abandon ship."

It’s a moment seemingly coming sooner rather than later; according to Leplae, a lot of his current customers have Netflix accounts – including himself – but like the vibe of a video store.

"For example, I can make coffee here without any problem, but a lot of times, I’m surprised how much I want to go next door to Fuel for coffee. And the only reason I have to explain that is that sometimes it’s nice to walk into another environment where other people are and having this interchange. I’m willing to spend three dollars just for that. I think for a lot of people that’s it: taking a walk, going somewhere and doing something rather than sitting in the same place."