Late Night Movie Night 2022 🍿

APASA’s Late Night Movie Night Event, as told from the perspective of APASA intern Kendal Win.

It was a chilly Friday evening, but the Rosen Family Screening Room felt warm with a feeling of anticipation as it began to fill up with its audience for the night. Once everyone had gotten their chance to grab a delicious Beard Papa’s cream puff or a different snack of choice and settled into their seats, it was time to introduce the movie that we would be watching. Drum roll, please…it was Blinded by the Light!

For those of you who may not have heard of it before, Blinded by the Light is a British film directed by Gurinder Chadha that was released in 2019 focusing on a British Pakistani high school student whose life is changed after he discovers a love for Bruce Springsteen’s music. Filled with a mix of hard-hitting moments addressing the generational gap within immigrant families and comedic situations that high schoolers find themselves in, the movie was amazing to watch (if you disagree that is okay, I am by no means a film major), and I found myself tearing up at multiple points throughout. By the end, I was feeling quite a bit emotional, and, looking around the room, I could sense that those around me were also trying to unpack the story that we had just experienced together.

To help us in channeling these reflections, we were presented with a couple of discussion questions to facilitate conversations for us to share our experiences and thoughts with our peers on topics ranging from which musicians have inspired us to how intergenerational differences affected the family’s dynamics in the film. My eyes were opened to the different ways we each perceived the themes of the movie, and I even got to learn a bit about some aspects of its cinematography. This lovely discussion, complete with both serious and lighthearted comments, enabled me to think more deeply about the film while also getting to know my fellow movie watchers better.

Champions of the Late Night Movie Night Kahoot!

Last, it was time for the big finale: a Kahoot! With prizes on the line, the competition was intense. The room was filled with looks of concentration as everyone raced through each question, trying their hardest to make their way to the top of the leaderboard. There were easy questions asking things as simple as where the title came from, and there were difficult ones looking for answers such as the names of other films the director, Gurinder Chadha, had also worked on. At the end of the game, we happily awarded the mini projector and Squishmallow prizes to our deserving champions, ending this event in high spirits. 

It was so much fun to see all of your faces, new and familiar, show up to our Late Night Movie Night. We hope you all had a great time (personally, I tried my first cream puff from Beard Papa’s, and it was so tasty)! Thanks for coming out, and we’ll see you again soon.