By Bradi Murphy | Arts & Life Editor
Monday marked the beginning of the second year for the Movie Mondays at the Waco Hippodrome, a free weekly showing of documentaries covering a diverse set of important issues and topics arising in our world today.
The season started with “Sonic Sea,” a documentary about the impact of the industrial and military ocean noises on marine animals. It also included “the unexplained stranding and mass mortality of several species of whales in the Bahamas in March 2000,” the Student Activities Website said. Viewers can also look forward to a variety of films coming up this season, such as “Let Hope Rise,” “Misconception,” “The Mask You Live In” and “Lo And Behold.”
“Most of the big movies that show [in theaters] are action movies or rom-coms where as these are real life stories and real life issues,” Amy Gillham, the programming director for the Waco Hippodrome, said.
A committee composed of Baylor students and faculty and staff, mainly from the media and digital media department, determine which films to air and which important topics to include. Professors from other departments are also able to pitch ideas of topics they want covered that can correlate with their in class discussions.
“The whole program is designed to just provide an opportunity, whether you’re a Baylor community member or a Waco community member, to come together at one of the most historic theaters in the city of Waco and just have an opportunity to see some educational pieces,” Jordy Dicky, Assistant director of Student Union at Baylor said.
Since there’s a lot of vibrancy within Waco right now, Dickey hopes that film will have the opportunity to grow as well. They are on the way to achieving this goal as they are working with popular production companies such as Sundance. Dickey hopes Waco can become the new hot-spot between Austin and Dallas.
“It provides opportunities for the Waco community members and Baylor community members to just learn and experience and dialogue with some renounced film makers and just be exposed to a variety of topics in our world. We want to be able to provide that and we hope that this can continue to grow, as many other things in Waco have been growing,” Dickey said.
