AFC was started by former Campus Cinema employee & movie buff James Hirsh during the Fall of 2002. After Hirsh graduated in 2003, the club was run by Rob Roy and others in the Pirate Ship. The club used to meet every Wednesday at 8:30 pm in 2 Wellman where they would show "alternative films." There has been little mention of its activity as of late, but we can always hope the club will pop up again. The Alternative Film Club has exposed many a student to all sorts of cool, entertaining films.

Recently, SPAC has added to its organization application forms questions regarding film viewings: are going to show a film or not? And if you do, what is the purpose? And most importantly: do you have permission to show the film? Have you contacted the people who own the copyright? So, this said, the Alternative Film Club is not likely to be revived.

Film buffs, check out Retro Film Revival.

Here's a list of movies screened at AFC:

  • The 400 Blows - French masterpiece by François Truffaut
  • 101 Reykjavik - Baltasar Kormákur, Iceland's answer to Almodóvar
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • Alice - Modern Czechoslovakian adaption of Alice in Wonderland - animation/live action
  • All About My Mother - directed by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar
  • Barfly - Screenplay by CHARLES BUKOWSKI, starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway
  • Belle de Jour
  • Better Off Dead - Starring a very young John Cusack
  • Big Trouble in Little China - Directed by John Carpenter, starring Kurt Russell
  • Brazil
  • Cecil B. Demented
  • City of Lost Children - 1995, Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet, quintuplets, orphans, cyclops, and circus freaks—what's not to like
  • Crumb
  • Cry-Baby - John Waters directed, Johnny Depp starred
  • Daughters of Darkness - aka Le Rouge aux lèvres, Eurotrash Horror, 1971
  • Dawn of the Dead - the original 1978 film by George A. Romero
  • Dead Man - Starring Johnny Depp, Crispen Glover, and Iggy Pop
  • Delicatessen - trapped in a hotel with nothing to eat...
  • Eraserhead - Double feature w/Un Chien Andalou
  • Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! - Russ Meyer directed, 1965.
  • Freaks - the film that ruined Tod Browning's career, 1932, FIRST AFC SCREENING (10/9/02)
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Directed by Sergio Leone - Clint Eastwood's first big break in this Spaghetti Western
  • Harold & Maude - Pre-Valentine's Day Show (2/13/03)
  • Hedwig and the Angry Inch
  • Infra-Man - also known as Jung-Gwok chiu-yan!
  • Manhattan
  • Matador - Pedro Almodóvar directed, 1986
  • Meet the Feebles - Directed by Peter Jackson, best described as the Muppets on Crack
  • Repoman
  • Rock ‘n’ Roll High School
  • Six String Samurai - Movie about Guitarist warriors - crazy flick.
  • Spider Baby
  • Spirited Away - Japanese Cartoon Classic of the 1990s
  • The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Pre-Halloween Jamboree
  • This Is Spinal Tap
  • Twin Peaks: Original Pilot Episode, U.S. Television Version
  • Un Chien Andalou - surrealist Salvador Dali/Luis Buñuel movie with famous eye-ball cutting scene
  • Valley Girl

As quoted in [The California Aggie] (10/28/02):

Irene Park: "They show interesting movies, not like the kind you see in the theaters. They are just amusing."

Liz Rard: "They show a good variety of films, more than just what is considered mainstream. They show stuff not everyone will like. It's good to be offended."

Rachel Maximo: "It's a good chance to meet people and make friends. It's a club for the people. You get to see movies you haven't seen before for free. So come and watch - you have nothing to lose."

Anneliese Kaufman: "It's not formal; you don't have to be a member; you don't have to do anything. Just come and watch the movies."

Comments:

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  • Now why don't we have an "unofficial" Alternative Film Club? The meetings could be held anywhere like an apartment or somebodies suite dorm at the Cuarto Residence Halls or something. I'd think that as long as we do it in this form then we could claim it's for "home and personal use" I'm only an incoming freshman but I'd think there would have to be a way to get around the rules a little bit here. ~NathanielJarrett

2005-09-01 15:25:07   Well, you can only fit so many people in a cuarto dorm, and the sound and picture will probably suck. What you can do is find out when 2 Wellman is unoccupied, and hold renegade AFC showings in there. However, if someone else has reserved the room or needs to clean it, you get kicked out. —ArlenAbraham

2005-09-01 15:33:22   while I was busy with Moving Day I came across an old flyer for the old AFC with James, from 2002-2003, I believe. :p I brought my copy of This is Spinal Tap for viewing once, the French subtitles strangely got left on. —IrenePark

2005-09-14 14:20:37   I'm just back from spending 5 years in Central Europe and the Balkans and have a ton of foreign films I'd love to show. I'm good for the underground approach at that hall. Shall we set a meeting date and see if we can get a few people to show up to at least talk the idea over? —AaronBurda

2005-09-15 13:20:41   The problem with scheduling renegade meetings is that it's hard to know what the schedule of the room is going to be free. —ArlenAbraham

[[DateTime()]] Paraphrasing a lot of what IrenePark sent me in an email, unless we want to get into a lot of legal stuff about publicly showing a film, contacting copy right owners, etc. we have to make our showings a "non public viewing" but at the same time push the boundaries of that as far as we possibly can. We wouldn't be able to do promotion of any event officially but word of mouth would probably more than suffice (as well as the wiki). In terms of location, since we can't officially ask for permission to use some equipment (that would require copyright permission) we'd have to do it with a nod and a wink from either some professor/graduate student who knows the schedule of a room and can tell us when nothing will be going on there for 3 hours. As long as there is no promotion, no donations/fees, no major problems for the department (including cleaning up) and nothing is official with the clubs organization we may be able to find somebody to help us. Other than that I think we'd have to have a really small club of max 15 people and watch films at somebodies place (not a bad alternative, although somewhat restrictive). —AaronBurda

  • I'm not sure that it would be impossible to get copyright permission from studios, but then, I haven't tried yet. but I mean, what do those Anime clubs do when they show their stuff (assuming that's what they do)? Need to do more research on policies and who holds what copyrights, etc. —IrenePark
    • Pretty much everything the anime club shows isn't even licensed in the US. —Jevan
  • Good news, I did a little googling and found out how to get "public use" films for universities. http://www.swank.com/ is the company that most organizations use. You can get some legal info at http://www.haverford.edu/av/copyright/pubperform.html According to swank, almost all major US universities have an account with them. I searched their film archive and it seems they have a quite diverse selection. It kind of seemed that it doesn't take long for them to ship you the DVD once you order it (a week max). There weren't any prices online except for "The passion of Christ" which you can show at your church to less than a thousand people for $75 for one showing. Hopefully that is fairly representative of the prices. I sent them an email asking how to get an account, how to find out what the prices are and if UC Davis already has an account. If this works out then we could definitely do everything official and borrow an auditorium. —AaronBurda

2005-09-15 22:55:11   Swank seems a bit extreem for a film club. Maybe what you're looking to do, Aaron, is revive Campus Cinema... —ArlenAbraham

  • I think we have three option, any of which I would be cool for doing, the first is just going to somebodies apartment and watching a good film, people could take turns picking the film. The problem of course is finding somebody with a large enough room, decent television and where we won't be disturbed. Second we could do an underground showing in a free classroom/auditorium. As discussed this has its downsides but may also be doable. Third we can actually get the film from Swank and do a legit minor public showing, this would be feasible if we had at least 15 people, everybody paid $5 and presumably getting permission for a room then should be fairly easy. This assumes the films are only $75 for minor public showings, which I think may not be the case. Or lastly, we could do option three but just for "The passion of Christ" and show it over and over again each month..... ;) If I'm missing anything....put it up. —AaronBurda

2005-09-17 09:48:56   What medium does swank give you? Is it a 35mm reel? I'd be willing to pay $5 to see something in 35, but i don't (currently) know how to run a projector. That being said, someone at my place of work could probably teach me. —ArlenAbraham

  • I would imagine that it would be DVD but that is just a guess. We could probably get 35mm but it would be a lot more expensive. When I think about it, its probably best to start with a minimalist approach (my initial enthusiasm for swank aside) and just get together and watch a few films in somebodies living room. When we get to the point where it's crowded we can look at expanding our little club. —AaronBurda

2005-09-20 10:00:38   Since we're starting out small, do we want to set a date/pick a film/pick a location for a first meeting? If we all show up at lecture hall A and there's a class or something, we can always walk to lecture hall B. Also, do we plan on doing any non-wiki/non-word-of-mouth advertising? —ArlenAbraham

  • Hi Arlen, sorry for not replying sooner. A couple of friends of mine at the Graduate School of Managment have formed a small group that will be showing films using one of the classrooms and projectors. The School didn't ask anything about copyright issues and it is in a classroom so hopefully that qualifies as a non-public showing. Anyway, we watched one film last night (with popcorn and drinks) and everything seemed to go ok. About eight people from the GSM showed up and a couple more have expressed interest. I am going to start posting dates when we'll be having films on my wiki home page so if anybody is interested just show up (or contact me and I'll give you more info). The films are picked each week by someone who thinks they have something good to show. The GSM up to this point has said its fine, although they wanted to "think about it" so we may get the boot in the future... AaronBurda

2005-10-16 21:19:45   I came across this jewel and felt I had to share it with you, my Wiki friends. Read Roger's moving essay, then look at the printer-friendly (text) listing of the 100 greatest films: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=greatmovies_first100 —SteveDavison

go here to see when rooms are available: http://cevs.ucdavis.edu/dept_cont/space/

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