Rima Chaudhry is a fourth year student at Gray’s School of Art and is President of the Film Society. Radar sat down with her to find out a wee bit more about her, and what she does.
What made you want to join the film society?
Well, I started it. It was three years ago now, loads of people signed up at the Fresher’s Fayre for societies that you wanted to start up and there were loads of names down and nobody was actually taking control of it. So you have an initial meeting back at the old union in town and someone said they had start it up and get it running but that person never did anything about it. So I was like ‘Right, I really want to do this’, so I started up the Facebook group and we kind of got the ball rolling and it has been running ever since.
So what’s the day to day like?
We pretty much go to the cinema about three times a month. The way we run it is that everyone votes for what we are going to do so everyone gets a say, it’s fair, the majority vote wins. There is actually quite a lot of work involved in running it! You wouldn’t think so, but there’s so many things going on.
What kind of things?
Things like remembering to put up a poll for what films we see, emailing venues to screen films, keeping check of who has signed up, arranging for people to make films and external aspects such as the treasurer handling the money.
Are there any kinds of students that naturally gravitate to the film society?
The society mainly consists of students who aren’t big fans of drinking and just like to chill out and go catch a film; easy going, you know? They’re not the partying kind. It’s nice because the majority of students like to go out and drink, but there’s a percentage who don’t want to do that. They’d rather just catch a film and have a chat.
Alright, so what sort of films are your favourite?
My favourite? Oh, there’s so many! I love Marvel. I love Lord of the Rings… there’s so many! I love Christopher Nolan films, Dark Knight, Inception, Interstellar. I also have a weakness for chick flicks as well, I do like my Mean Girls! I like pretty much any films. I’m not too keen on independent films, you know, like artsy kind of films, but I’ll go out and see what they’re like, but it just depends eh?
The only genre I don’t like is musical films. I can’t stand them.
So, have you been enjoying four years as President?
Yes, yes it’s good. This is my last year, it’s going to be strange leaving it all behind. We’re looking for a committee for next year so if anyone’s out there and wants to join... you know. I would really like to see it continue on and not just die off.
You can keep up to date with all of RGU:Film’s updates on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/rgufilm