Putting the spotlight on Screen/Society

Two to four times a week, for a total of about 60 times a semester, films from across genres, time periods and geography are screened for free in the Ruby’s Film Theatre. This is the work of Screen/Society, a Duke-sponsored program that has its roots in an informal graduate student film club formed in the late ‘80s. Today, Screen/Society is run by three main members: lead organizer and programer Hank Okazaki, Graduate School ‘02, and assistant programmers Archer Boyette, Graduate School ‘21, and John Winn, Graduate School ‘25. 

According to Okazaki, the English and Literature graduate students who founded the group “were trying to find a way to get to see works that you couldn’t see otherwise, that either weren’t in the library or weren’t being shown anywhere locally.” Screen/Society’s name was coined by group member Jonathan Beller, Graduate School ‘94, a professor of humanities and media studies and critical and visual studies at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and an adjunct professor at Barnard College.

Okazaki started working for Screen/Society in 2003, serving as one of the organization’s first official staff members durings its transition from student-run club to Duke-sponsored program. The timing of his involvement in the organization “lined up” perfectly with his realization that his film interests lay more in programming than academia.

Throughout each semester, Okazaki, Boyette and Winn do a number of tasks, including handling publicity for upcoming screenings, tracking the arrival and returns of the films’ physical prints and scheduling movies for the following semester. Okazaki also attends the organization’s screenings to welcome, check in with the projectionist and observe the audience's size and responses to the film.

Sometimes, Screen/Society finds that the demand for a film exceeds the number of people they can fit in the theatre and have to turn away potential viewers. While the team sees this as a sign of a successful screening, Okazaki emphasized that, in a different way, they are “equally proud” when they are able to “show 25 people something that they were completely thrilled to see that never gets shown.” Screen/Society also takes pride in their ability to screen movies on film, as they have access to the only location in Durham that can present 16mm and 35mm film. 

Screen/Society differs from regular movie theaters and arthouse venues, in that, as Okazaki noted, it emphasizes having “expansive events,” such as collaborations with different academic departments, screenings with filmmaker Q&As and films with introductions by graduate students or faculty members. These collaborations also allow Screen/Society to use multiple funding sources, helping keep their screenings all accessible and free to the public. 

These collaborations have been a core component of Screen/Society since its early days, when the club’s graduate students would go door-to-door, speaking to different departments in order to get their events funded. Now, the majority of its funding comes from the Cinematic Arts Program, various grants, co-sponsorships and the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. This has enabled them to devote more time to other parts of their work and allowed them to worry less about choosing films that will be easy to collaborate on. 

They have also used the extra time to continue their efforts to boost undergraduate engagement with their screenings. For example, they have been able to work with professors who share their passion for film to make attending certain viewings an extra credit opportunity or even — in the case of classes with a heavy film component — an assignment. 

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