New club gives students opportunity to watch diverse films

Dr. Ercole and Dr. Lolis plan to introduce movies typically not shown in local theaters

Sabina Ajjan, Gazebo Staff Writer|September 7, 2018

Dr. Nicholas Ercole, left, and Dr. Tom Lolis review movies to be offered in new film club

The Film Club is a new addition to Stratford’s variety of clubs.

AP World History teacher Dr. Nicholas Ercole and Upper School English teacher Dr. Tom Lolis decided to start it because they both have a diverse collection of films, and they want to expose students to movies coming from different cultures.

They want to give them a chance to see films they would never find in a movie theater.

“They are all variations on the same theme … superhero does this, superhero does that,” Dr. Ercole said. “The goal here is movies based on reality instead of that pre-packaged nonsense.”

The movies would come from all over the world — from the Middle East to Latin America.

“We are working on what’s called visual rhetoric, which is training the eye and the brain to read images in a way that is similar to reading text,” Dr. Lolis said. “So what do certain framed shots mean? What emotions and ideas do they communicate?”

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They are all variations on the same theme … superhero does this, superhero does that. The goal here is movies based on reality instead of that pre-packaged nonsense.

— Dr. Nicholas Ercole

“I’m excited to watch foreign films,” sophomore Alexandra Hall said.

They plan on meeting twice a month in either the Stefanis or Dorogy room in the science building.

At some point, the two Stratford teachers want to make this an elective students can take on history, fiction and film. In this class, they would read a piece of historical nonfiction, and then, a fiction story on a specific world event. After that, they would watch a documentary on it and discuss how these different methods portray the event.