Film Society ‘reels in’ new interest, participation

by By Liz Atkins

Monday November 14, 2005

Thursday night’s Film Society screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky was described in the daily e-mail as "A magical pistol- dream western raveling every sensory inhibition to discover truth in the pains of the heart," and even with the description’s intriguingly disjointed structure, the movie was certainly everything promised.

Over dinner at Bates, before the 8 p.m. Thursday night screening, junior Evan Davis and senior Igor Shteyrenberg talked at length about the aspects of the Film Society, which was organized last year by seniors Ben Rose and Ben Sure.

Despite the excellent choice of movies shown last year, the group’s following was never as large as the one that now trails today’s Film Society duo.

According to Davis, this is due to many things but, above all, to the great support of newly arrived freshmen, some of whom flock not only to the appeal of the film itself but to the men in charge.

Davis and Shteyrenberg are also more organized than the last group. They have chosen only one day per week for their screening, compared to last year’s 3 or 4 times a week, which didn’t allow for a large gathering on any given showing.
With the help of senior Justin Millan, who has been a big hand in creating posters, the promotion of the society has also been improved, said Shteyrenberg.

In addition, the society is also working on getting money from Senate in order to fund trips into the city. These trips would be for the purpose of seeing great (although lesser known) and hard-to-find films that are housed in out-of-the-way theatres as opposed to the common big blockbusters.

The movies, currently shown on Thursday nights, are not shown on account of availability. Shteyrenberg and Davis, both lovers of film, choose movies that are both widely accessible to audiences yet not widely known. They also welcome viewer input and opinion. As "regular" freshman Paige Lipari said, the process of film selection by the society is "actually very democratic."

Coming to one of the film screenings is like getting a free film education. "It’s like auditing a film 101 class," she said.

A final reason why people should spend their Thursday nights in the Film View Room, Lipari said, is that the society is "led by two intelligent sexual beings."