When Japanese teacher Ryan Christie attended high school in the 1990s, he took a class his senior year that made a lasting impression on him.

It was a film studies class.

“It was actually considered an English class because there was a lot of reading and writing,” Christie said. ‘There was no film club at the time, but there was an actual class about it.”

Almost 25 years after graduating, Christie has served as the Elk Grove film club’s sponsor. He took over the film club after the club’s first sponsor, Bruce Janu, left Elk Grove to become the head librarian at Hersey three school years ago. While the club is on a short hiatus, Christie hopes to bring the film club back in a way that’s a step above what it was during his first few years leading the activity.

“We could make it about making movies,” Christie said. “We could watch movies that are good examples of cinematography, or good examples of editing.”

Christie said the club has to take age ratings and content into consideration when deciding a film to be screened.

“We do have streaming services that we have throughout the school that have a list of movies which we can already watch,” Christie said. “They’re prescreened. They fit into what would be deemed appropriate for school.”

For example, a few years ago, the club originally planned for a screening of “Pink Floyd: The Wall,” based on the album from the titular band. Christie recalled that the movie contained a few parts that while mild didn’t fit the expectations of the club’s choices, just in case.

Despite having to make sure a film doesn’t break any barriers in order to meet policies and appropriateness of the school, it’s ultimately up to the students who attend the club to decide what they like to be shown next.

In the past, one of the film club’s main attractions was a film festival featuring student work. Christie said the previous sponsor Janue would “take submissions not just from D214 students, but from around the world.”

While such demand for the festival is a bit slim, Christie mentions how in the future he would like to do special movie presentations with a few steps.

“There would be a lot of operational and systematic things that would have to be in place that would have to work with administration and the district to make sure it’s okay to have students here at that time,” Christie said. “We could make a contest, or we could decide to not make it a contest and just show the movies.”

Despite some of these new ideas that come with a film club reboot, Christie says movie creation should be a central part of the film club’s mission.

“I have a couple students in class who are trying to make their own movie,” Christie said. “If they were to come to me and say we have it complete, I would be more than happy to show that. If anybody were to make a movie, and they wanted to have it shown, I would be the person to come to.”