In May of 2025, I was sitting passenger seat on a car ride from my hometown of the Bay Area back to Los Angeles. I was lonely. Not in the sense of having nobody, but rather in the sense of community. LA is expansive and in my five years here, I never found a community to fit into. So I made one.

With a simple photo mode TikTok, I asked if people would be interested in a movie club. Within 24 hours, I had 60K+ views, dozens of DMs, and hundreds of comments.

By June, I had kicked off the first official month of Monthly Movie Club.

Monthly Movie Club is a safe and inclusive space for film lovers of all kinds. It’s a space where any kind of film lover is welcome, whether your favorite film is Scooby Doo (2002) or The Godfather (1972). Every opinion matters, as long as it’s kind.

Every month, four films are chosen that fit around a specific theme. One of them is always in the theaters. The goal is to foster media literacy and think about art in deeper ways. At the end of the month, we meet up to discuss and chat. Throughout the month, there are also film screenings, museum outings, a book club, and so much more to help the community grow, and provide opportunities to meet one another. Seeing films together is our love language!

The goal for MMC has always been community, and I feel like we’ve hit that goal in less than a year already. However, my additional goal for the club was to support local businesses.

The future of Monthly Movie Club holds so much, but I would love to find ways to partner with local businesses to get them the love and support they deserve. I’d also love to work with studios to get more people into the theater for films and find ways to support indie filmmakers as well.