Office of Student Life and Housing Office Hold Star Wars Film Festival

In preparation for the newest “Star Wars” movie, “The Last Jedi”, the YU Office of Student Life (OSL), along with the Housing Office, ran a “Star Wars” Film Festival with screenings of the previous movies on the Wilf campus. The festival culminated with a showing of “The Last Jedi” on December 25th at the Union Square Theater.

The showings began on November 18th with a showing of “Episode IV: A New Hope,” and the movies were then shown in chronological order. Attendance at the events varied, reaching ten at the busiest showing.

For the showing of “The Last Jedi”, the OSL and Housing Office rented out a theater and charged students a reduced rate of $5 per ticket. According to Levitin, the theater rental cost $3,700. The theater seats 200, and 180 students attended the screening. Overall, 175 tickets were made available for purchase while students were able to win the rest of the tickets by either spinning the Chanukah wheel in the OSL or by answering “Star Wars” trivia questions.

Tzvi Levitin, Stanton Fellow in the OSL, said, “The idea was to give students a fun way to hang out and have fun.” According to Levitin, the idea for the event was developed by OSL Student Life Coordinator Natan Bienstock and Director of University Housing and Residence Life Jonathan Schwab.

Yeshiva College Junior Gabriel Baron, who won a ticket by answering trivia questions, said, “I won a ticket and if there are two things in this world I can’t say no to, it’s ‘Star Wars’ and free stuff.”

Schwab stated that the OSL and Housing Department are planning to run similar programming involving movie marathons and theater rental leading up to the movie “Avengers: Infinity War.” Before running the future events, the OSL plans to gauge interest by asking students which movies they’d like to see and which times would be best for the students interested. They also plan to keep the location and time of the movie showings consistent in the future.