The Film Society’s first screening will be Shutter Island. COURTESY/@MCFILMSOCIETY
By Mack Olmsted, Asst. Arts and Entertainment Editor
The Manhattan College Film Society returns this October with the theme “of violence and revenge.”
The club originated from the Program Director of the film studies minor, Margaret Toth Ph.D. The board members this year were picked by Toth because of the interests shown by the individuals. The board members consist of the president/events manager, TJ Perez, the outings organizer, Kerry Sullivan, and the social media coordinator Olivia Maddalone.
The theme “of violence and revenge” was chosen at the club’s first meeting. They had a brainstorming session where they discussed all of their ideas and recommendations and decided on the theme that had the most interest through a vote. The process of picking films is similar. The movies they show don’t have to necessarily be conventional movies or a movie that everybody knows, but they all have the theme structure for violence and revenge.
“Violence and revenge specifically have many different ways that they present themselves in movies,” Perez said. “There’s gendered violence, there’s race violence, there’s just straight gore, but all of these movies kind of you know, they all mean different things … there’s a lot of different genres that we’re heading in this and there were other ones that were pitches.”
The films the Film Society plans on screening are, “Shutter Island”, “Kill Bill: Volume 1”, “Oldboy”, “Memento”, “Bullet Train”, “Perfect Blue” and “Baby Driver”. The club also plans on collaborating with MC Players and possibly screen “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to coincide with the players’ performance of “A Comedy of Errors”.
Before COVID, the club would meet more constantly and have more events. In addition to film screenings, the Film Society plans on expanding its activities by having additional meetings about film discussions as well as taking trips related to film. Sullivan explained the club’s future plans.
“We’re talking about doing more than just the screenings and actually meet and have club meetings,” Sullivan said. “I mean, it’s cool to meet once a month and talk about a movie, but there’s so much other stuff that we can talk about and we can do as a club. We’re trying to get it back up and running, in a sense to the point that it used to be like pre-COVID.”
The Film Society plans on taking trips to film festivals that happen in the city. Sullivan explained that she would like the club to support local filmmakers and shared that there are many opportunities to do so. She also explained that while it may be difficult to do so, she is interested in trying to bring the Film Society to some movie studios downtown.
All of the Film Society’s meetings will be held in Miguel Hall room 311/ the Rodriguez room. The club plans on meeting on the first Tuesday of every month to host the screenings. After that, they plan on meeting bi-monthly and discuss what’s going on in the film right now.
Maddalone is excited about what the Film Society has to offer this year and hopes that students enjoy the screenings that they will host.
“My favorite aspect of the film society is meeting people involved in the film studies department,” Maddalone stated in an email. “People should join the film society, because it’s a fun club, we have amazing stuff coming up hoping to spend a couple of meetings off campus to visit some places!!!”
To hear more about their events, follow their Instagram @mcfilmsociety.