The Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque: Avoid Streaming, Come to a Screening

On Oct. 24, the Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque hosted a screening of the 1968 science fiction film “Je t’aime je t’aime” directed by Alain Resnais. It was the fourth screening in the “Nostalgia” program curated by the HUC. Preceding it was the 1929 surrealist silent short “Un Chien Andalou.”

“Je t’aime je t’aime” was introduced by sophomore and HUC member Stella R. Guest ’29. As the lights dimmed, anticipation among local cinephiles in the audience grew — a crowd ranging from undergraduate students to PhD candidates and local community members.

Since 2021, the HUC has granted undergraduate students the chance to curate films to be screened at the Harvard Film Archive, located within the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. The archive itself boasts nearly 25,000 films, providing a multitude of material for members of the HUC to explore. Under the guidance of HFA director Haden Guest, members of the HUC have curated several film screenings and programs over the past five years.

Following the cinematheque’s founding in 2021, it remained essentially inactive until Gunnar Sizemore ’27 and Aidin R. Kamali ’25 worked with Guest to revive the program in 2024. Since then, the cinematheque has grown exponentially each semester.

“Originally, it was a larger programming team, and the goal was not to curate cohesive programs,” Sizemore said in an interview with The Crimson. “The goal was to put up monthly or bimonthly films that people seem to be interested in, but I think the team has become more interested in learning how to curate.”

Although Sizemore is concentrating in Art, Film, and Visual Studies, the HUC is comprised of students from a wide array of concentrations.

“A lot of us aren’t film students. Some of us are history students, bio students, from all around. But we’re all just people who are curious about film,” Sizemore said.

As a result, the HUC provides a unique opportunity for any undergraduate interested in film — whether it be as a member or as part of the audience.

“It’s genuinely one of the most genuine groups of people that I’ve ever been around,” Sizemore said. “It’s my favorite corner of campus.”

Given the immense material of the archive, selecting films to screen is no easy feat. Each member picks a few films from the archive that they either already have watched or have interest in watching.

“And then we put them all on index cards and we throw them on the floor,” Sizemore said “There are about 350 index cards on the floor, all with different movie titles.”

The chaos of this process seems unorthodox, but as a result films end up being grouped together in ways that members wouldn’t have realized otherwise. Following this, the members narrow down films based on several factors such as length, plot, and general sentiment among the group.

Unlike online algorithms, such as social media or streaming websites that group analogous content with each other, the HUC’S curation of films is organic and forces audiences to make their own analysis — the main goal of the cinematheque, especially as literacy rates are on the decline.

“It’s such a necessary skill to be able to understand why disparate things are being presented to you,” Sizemore said.

Following the screening of “Je t’aime je t’aime,” audience members broke out into discussions as they left the theater.

“We were just talking about the short film that went with it,” said audience member Jacqueline Ramos-Draper, PhD candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “And we were talking about trying to piece them together of why they may have placed them side-by-side.”

Many audience members are HFA regulars or have been to screenings in the past.

“I’ve been here pretty often,” said Maria Luisa Zeta, a PhD candidate at HGSE. “I try to come to at least three in a semester.”

Through the online mailing list as well as the paper catalog, students and local community members can keep track of films and film series screened at the HFA. Tickets are free for Harvard students, otherwise prices range from $8-$10 for general admission.