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There is a long trade in the physical objects that films leave behind. Original posters, lobby cards, props, and signed stills carry real value for collectors, and a rare one-sheet from a classic picture can sell for the price of a car. The appeal is partly nostalgia and partly the sense of holding a piece of something that otherwise exists only as light on a wall.

Physical media has its own devoted following. Even after streaming became the default, collectors kept buying discs — often the special editions built around a single film, packed with restored transfers, commentary tracks, and printed essays. For many, owning the object is the point: a stream can vanish when a license lapses, but a disc on a shelf stays.

Festivals often carry their own small trade in printed programs, posters, and catalogs, and these turn into keepsakes of a particular year. Long afterward, a worn program from one festival edition can be the only surviving record that a certain short ever screened at all.