When Dr. Kevin Henderson became the director of the Moxie Film Series, Drury University was in the beginning steps of revamping its Humanities Division.

At that time, his good friend Mike Stevens,  executive director of the Moxie Cinema, met with Henderson to discuss an idea: Stevens proposed the idea of screening a film along with featuring a professor who has extensive knowledge of the movie to lead a discussion about the film’s themes or background.

Henderson, along with Stevens and fellow Drury professor Dr. Daniel Livesay, kicked the idea into gear. They worked together to get the startup funding, and received grants from the Missouri Humanities Council and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The Moxie Film Series now presents three films each semester, accompanied by a pre- and post-film discussion. Each movie discussion is led by a member of Drury faculty with a knowledge of the film’s historical background or specific themes relating to the classroom. Tickets are discounted at $5 and provides a good opportunity for students to get off-campus.

While the three films are typically screened on consecutive weekends in the middle of the semester, the screening of “A Raisin in the Sun” has been moved up to Feb. 28, in honor of Black History Month.

To learn more about the Moxie Film Series, The Scoop: SpringVegas interviewed Dr. Henderson.

How do you find these movies that you present?

We put out a call to humanities and arts faculty, primarily, at the end of summer once we know we have the grant money, and then we ask them to submit proposals. … And we look over the proposals and say, “OK, if this is a film, then what are some of the things, in a paragraph or two, you think you might talk about or share with people afterward.”

And some of the other factors sometimes just come down to running time. So we really have not shown a long film because by the time you ask people to sit through a three-hour film — even if it’s a great film — they may not want to stick around for half an hour to hear someone lecture and discuss.

What do you think college students benefit from seeing these films?

I think there could be so many different benefits. … The benefit is: here’s a chance to see some movies in a theater that you’ve heard of, but because of your age, or when you grew up, or the region you’re in, you just never had an opportunity to see them.

I think the second thing is that we try to bring some of what we do in the classroom, just in a real compressed, small way, into the discussion that we host after the film. It’s kind of like getting a mini-lesson or mini-lecture as well as a chance to discuss sometimes fairly challenging themes, but in relation to a film that everyone has just seen.

In what ways do you think movies can discuss or present humanities that maybe books or literature can’t? 

Movies, when they work well, don’t try and address us with a thesis and then argue a point, but the thesis comes out in a very visual means because it’s a film, and we explore the complexities of a theme. … Somewhat like literature, I would say, you’re also watching a story as opposed to being told politically how to think, or how to vote, or what some sort of answer is to a very complicated problem. … Watching characters struggle to become, in a sense, more aware of their shared humanity is one of the things that film just does especially well, or certain films do.

And do you think that either film or books are better at presenting humanity than one another or that they just have their separate strengths? 

I think they have their separate strengths. I really view film as a form of literature. Like, I would list at least the best films — I won’t qualify that — in the great novels, poems, and dramas. … I really see film as a rival form of literature — and I’m thinking of the best of films.

Is there anything you want to say to the people who are interested or have heard of it, but are still kind of on the fence about whether or not they want to attend? 

Yeah, please do attend! [laughs] Show up and give it a try. It’s a $5 ticket, which for a rare film and what’s now a really state-of-the-art theater with a really lively discussion after is, all told, a pretty good deal.

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Here are the films for the Moxie Film Series this spring. Each screening will occur at the Moxie Cinema starting at 1 p.m.:

• Feb. 28: Dr. Rich Schur presents A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
• April 11: Professor Charlyn Ingwerson presents Asghar Hatami’s A Separation (2012)
• April 18: Dr. Teresa Hornsby and Dr. Ray Patton present Sini Anderson’s The Punk Singer (2013)