A look inside one of Capilano’s newest clubs and the people who created it
Mayumi Izumi // Contributor
Capilano University’s Film Club was formed this past September by President Spencer Zimmerman and four other third-year film students. “We had all met through our classes in the MOPA [Motion Picture Arts] program and we used to come in late at night to screen films for fun,” he recalled. “Since then it’s grown to a lot more than just a handful of dudes watching movies every week, but that same intention and passion for films remain.”
Do you love movies too? The CapU Film Club has free movie screenings every week open to everyone, including non-students. This semester, screenings take place Wednesdays at 8:00 pm, with occasional special screenings on Friday nights.
The MOPA students, specifically Zimmerman and the executive committee — Vice President Liam Meredith, Treasurer Joss Arnott, Secretary Raine Lemay and Graphic Designer David Eusebio — often feel isolated in the BOSA building and are working on changing that. The club aims to create community by inviting students, faculty, and friends and family of both groups to the weekly screenings. Zimmerman also hopes that the screenings will enrich the lives of attendees with cultivated, art house, international and avant-garde films. He and the club want to expose us to movies that will give us a better understanding of art and culture.
“I think films and cinema are so essential to our education, and not just as film students, but as anyone concerned in exploring the arts. My biggest goal for the club has been to help enrich that knowledge and hopefully show people a side of films they weren’t previously aware of,” Zimmerman said. “I think that moment when you realize that films can be more than just entertainment, that they are a means to understand the world around us and even ourselves deeper, that moment is so important and I hope we can help people come to that through the club.”
The club has new events they want to implement this year, such as opening their doors to the faculty on campus, and hosting discussions similar to those of a book club after screenings.
Their movie schedule for each month is selected by the executive committee. “We all bring together the movies that have been requested to us or films we’d like to screen and then vote on which ones will make the program that month,” Zimmerman noted.
This month, the club will be screening two special presentations: on Feb. 5 they are presenting a double feature: Francis Ford Coppola’s epic war film Apocalypse Now, and the documentary Hearts of Darkness that chronicles the making of the Coppola film through footage captured by his wife, Eleanor. On Feb. 7, the club is screening Elevator To The Gallows, a 1958 crime-thriller based on a novel of the same title.
To see a full schedule of the Capilano Film Club’s screenings for February, go to their Instagram @capufilmclub