Get to know the people behind your favorite university cinema in our new blog series, “Meet Your IU Cinema Staff.” Using the format of our exclusive filmmaker interviews — all of which can be found on our YouTube channel — we’ve crafted a questionnaire for our staff to help introduce them to you, our audience. For today’s profile, we talked to one of our house managers (and literal ball of sunshine), Ava Clouden.
What is your job at IU Cinema?
House Manager, which recently includes Virtual Audience Manager.
What part of your job do you enjoy the most?
Being in the lobby for traffic before and after events! I love seeing people rolling up, excited to see a movie, explaining to their friends what they’re about to see or how cool it’s about to be, and I love to see people leaving after having had a thorough Experience with the film.
Of the IU Cinema events you’ve been a part of, do you have a favorite?
I like too many things to have favorites, but I was really glad when Isabel Sandoval was able to do a virtual Q&A with us in 2020! Her work already felt very personal, but being able to ask her about it was cool perspective. Also, she is so charming.
Do you have a film experience that changed your life or direction?
Maybe the first time I saw Some Like It Hot as a kid on TCM? I’m sure I didn’t think about it in any way other than “this is fun” and “Marilyn Monroe is very pretty,” but I really carried it with me. Performed femininity! Homosocial friendship! Pansexual hedonism! I wasn’t using any of those terms, but I didn’t need them to feel some kind of soft baby gender-delight in Tony Curtis’s earrings.
In terms of films and/or filmmakers, what or who inspires you?
Generally, I love the experience of watching achy, noir-style love stories, erotic freakshows, and coming-of-age stories about gals. I’ve enjoyed a lot of my experiences with Altmans and Cronenbergs, and the first time I saw Dirty Dancing I wept, for there were no films left to conquer.
What do you hope audiences leave with after an IU Cinema event?
I hope they feel like they were there with the film, lecture, etc., I guess! They don’t have to have liked it or have any feelings about it that they think about ever again, but I hope that they felt like it was there for them. Not everything has to be for everyone, but I hope people feel like something was open and available to them, for whatever they wanted from it.
What is the most powerful aspect of film as an art form?
The breadth of life! It’s not just sonics, or dialogue, or human familiarity, or embodied sentiment — it’s everything! I’ve never seen a movie that didn’t feel alive, and I love that. If I can only live one temporally-fixed life, I want to see as much of the other conceivable possibilities that there are or could be. A salve to my existential FOMO!
What would be your dream IU Cinema event or series?
The Human Centipede complete sequence — First, Full, Final — as one marathon screening.
Just kidding, but I am gross! Honestly, I think a marathon day of dopey, broadly-defined stoner comedies would be a riot: Harold and Kumar, Smiley Face, Half Baked, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Black Sheep, Dude, Where’s My Car?… a genre ripe with options!
What is the importance of having a place like the IU Cinema?
There is so much content! Things you’ve heard of because they’re famous, things you’re surprised you haven’t heard of because they’re apparently famous, things that are famous elsewhere, things that aren’t famous at all! Genres you know everything about or genres you didn’t even know existed. Having a place that offers such a variety of films in such a nonjudgmental way feels so special and sweet, like they’re there just for you. Here, maybe you’ll like this!
Which of our IU Cinema exclusive filmmaker interviews is your favorite or is one that you’d recommend?
I really enjoy the Numa Perrier interview! She was so cool when she came to the IU Cinema, and I really love in her interview when she talked about building her aesthetic, and the timing of her shift into film. Alone doesn’t have to mean alienated, and private doesn’t have to mean furtive. Everyone’s timing and collection of experiences are different for a reason.