From the big screens to you, the ETSU Cine Club is a new organization dedicated to showing audiences the culture of film society.
Its origins are based in Europe and are still a trend across the pond, but Sidney Blevins has decided to bring the cine club to the states as a potential ETSU organization.
Though members of the cine club will be ETSU students, one of Blevins’ goals of the club is to extend the film culture to the general public. Anyone can come and view the movie with no admission fee.
“There’s as many non-students as there are students interested, which is exciting,” Blevins said.
Blevins wants cine club to be more than just watching movies, though. He wants to put an academic twist on it by having a brief discussion about the movie before the showing.
Blevins will stand-in as speaker for now, but he is currently talking to directors now and seeing if they are willing to come to Johnson City to present their movie with a Q&A session after the showing. Students are also allowed to be speakers as well, especially film students with a passion for the film society.
Blevins wants to show exclusive movies. Many foreign films are not ordinarily shown in the United States until months or sometimes years after their release. Blevins wants to decrease this time and show them here at the Willow Tree in Johnson City.
“I don’t want to only screen films that are available to everyone,” Blevins said.
Blevins plans to have two screenings, one more of art and the other more for entertainment. Even the bad movies can make people look back and think, Blevins said.
The showings will be scheduled on Thursday evenings or Sunday afternoons at the Willow Tree. Nothing is set in stone yet, but Blevins has big plans for the cine club.
“The goal of this is definitely … to be for the greater good of humanity, which film can do that,” Blevins said. “Film is the most visceral experiences, to look through someone else’s eyes and someone else’s experience.”
