IRL Movie Club Brings Dialogue Back to the Movies

Amid rising political and social polarization, organizations like In Real Life (IRL) Movie Club are working on bringing people together by facilitating open communication.

On October 12, that effort will expand nationwide when more than 100 theaters, including Santa Barbara’s Paseo Nuevo Cinema, will screen MY OMAHA, a deeply personal documentary about a filmmaker and his politically opposite father.  

Annie Roney, the founder of IRL Movie Club, believes that instead of having a traditional Q&A or panel, audiences should be able to speak freely to one another about the films they’ve just watched.

“Our mission was to gather people in real life to watch a documentary,” Roney said. “And most importantly, to provide space, time, and intention for the audience to talk to each other after the film.”

It’s simple: After a film ends, conversation prompts are displayed on the screen and attendees are encouraged to talk to their neighbors about the film, share thoughts, or simply say hello. 

“When people are invited to talk to each other, there’s an energy shift that is just so profound,” Roney said. “I [see] people walk out more as more of a community than just strangers.”

The club screens one documentary per quarter, each selected to foster civil dialogue and highlight timely social, political, or cultural issues.

So when MY OMAHA premiered at Slamdance, a renowned festival for independent and first-time filmmakers, Roney saw it as a perfect fit for the IRL Movie Club’s mission. 

Director and filmmaker Nick Beaulieu spent the last decade exploring the heart of his hometown Omaha, Nebraska, and the complex relationship he shared with his father. 

“Omaha was very segregated racially, the statistics were high when it came to violence and poverty … part of our city was struggling and yet people only chose to look at it in a positive light,” Beaulieu said. “I really wanted to understand how these two things could exist at the same time.” 

Beaulieu spent several years meeting activists and community members engaged in racial justice work, seeking to understand how his city had become so deeply divided.

But what about his personal life?  

“I realized that I was struggling to talk about this film with my family, and issues of politics were especially a tense subject with my conservative dad,” Beaulieu said. “So I decided to pivot the film to explore that.” 

When his father was diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer, the project took on an even deeper urgency. “We started having conversations in 2018, and [the] film was a significant reason that we were able to reconnect and overcome our differences,” said Beaulieu.

After his father’s death in 2020, he dedicated the next five years to developing MY OMAHA, navigating the challenges of independent filmmaking while maintaining respect for the personal and political elements of the story.

As polarization rises nationally the emphasis on engaging community discussion has become increasingly valuable. IRL Movie Club provides films with not only a powerful distribution avenue but also a unique space where shared experience is the whole point. 

Tickets for all IRL Movie Club screenings are just $5, and membership is free, ensuring that audiences from all walks of life can participate in the conversation.

“[Beaulieu’s] film is such a good fit because whether a city is political or not, families are being torn apart by these differences,” Roney said. “[MY OMAHA] does a really good job of showcasing dialogue without belittling or disrespecting the other person.”

Beaulieu added that audience members have approached him emotionally, saying they reached out to someone they hadn’t spoken to in a long time.

“Everyone is trying to grapple with these really complicated systemic issues,” Beaulieu said.

“But it’s really just a story about a father, a son, and a family that are politically divided, and their attempt to love and understand each other.”

See MY OMAHA on Sunday, October 12, at 7 p.m.  at Metropolitan Theatre’s Paseo Nuevo. View trailer here.