When his quarantine began in New York City, Sachs became “really engrossed” in watching movies – “more than usual,” Starr said. “We started talking about the power of movies, especially when we are socially isolated, and we immediately started to think about all the old people in this country, the anxiety and the fear of being in a band. at high risk. “
Starr says this led them to the idea of creating the Long Distance Movie Club, a virtual movie viewing group that meets every two weeks with the aim of not only involving older people in a sense of community, but also to help them find a little escape in the midst of self-isolation. Starr and Sachs began cold calling senior citizen centers across the country, from Boston to Alaska to Hawaii. Ultimately, they landed on two homes: Priya Living in Santa Clara, California, and Lake Parke in Camdenton, Missouri.
Currently, they have about 10 to 15 participants in each of the two homes and the meetings are held every two weeks. Because Lake Parke is a small family-run facility and the residents are quarantined together, they watch the movies and discuss it as a group. At Priya Living, seniors join individually from their own apartment via Zoom. they looked roman holidays and From here to eternity with the residents of Lake Parke, and focused on Bollywood classics for the crowd at Priya Living, where the majority of seniors are from Southeast Asia. “My favorite old age story so far has been from Mahesh Nihilani,” Starr says. “He told us about a first cinema experience in India, where he used to visit a theater next to a huge river. In the middle of a movie, a warning slide appeared on screen saying “Water is coming, please stand up” and everyone should jump on the benches at high tide. Then the water returned to the river and another slide went up: “The movie will resume now.” He adds: “I had never heard anything like it; Love this story. “Starr says they learned a lot from their interactions with the film club members.” Ellie and I wanted to put together a list of older films that we thought would help unlock personal memories and stories. He said.
