Aliya Surti

Starting university is a daunting time for any student, but travelling to the other side of the world on your own to pursue a degree in a foreign county is an entirely different experience.

Third year Film and Media student Aliya Surti travelled all the way from Wisconsin (Wausau) in the United States in 2022 to come to Keele. Explaining why she chose a more rural university, she said, “I decided to come to Keele because I wanted a quieter campus. I also liked the number of societies and extra events offered. Coming to a new country meant I was alone, so making friends was important to me! Joining the Reel and Aerial Dance societies was a really great way to settle in.”

The societies Aliya joined played an important role during her time at Keele, providing a support network and friendships, while also offering her the opportunity to make a difference to lots of students. In her first year, Aliya joined the Reel Society after seeing it advertised on the Students’ Union website. At the time, there were only around six students who turned up every week to watch and discuss movies, and when mentioning the society to staff in the SU, they were unaware of the group.

Aliya said, “We like to show everything, movies you've seen before like The Muppets Christmas Carol or Get Out (Peele), but also things you may not have seen from other countries or time periods. We’ve shown Park Chan-Wook's Lady Vengeance and Alfonso Cuaron's Y Tu Mamá También, as well as David Lynch's Blue Velvet and some Miyazaki films. We wanted to offer a quiet space to relax while showing something new.”

During her first year, the President of the society asked if Aliya would run for the role of Secretary in the spring society elections, which are voted for by the group’s members. Unfortunately, he fell extremely ill over the summer and was unable to return to Keele. Aliya therefore re-ran to become President in the by-elections at the start of her second year. She said, “It was quite scary to jump right in, but the Treasurer was the same person, and I felt like I knew a lot about running the society from being a member in the previous year.”

After being elected to take over the running of the society, Aliya started to focus on growing the group, and spreading the word of the society and what it offered to students from other courses. She said, “I really wanted to work on our media presence to get more attention, so I redesigned the logo for the society and put posters up around campus. I also attended society sign-up fairs so that more students could find out about what we offer. Due to restrictions, we can't call ourselves a film or movie society, so I really wanted to make sure everything else about us showed what we are.”

Last year, to continue growing the group – which now stands at around 50 members – Aliya decided to start her own film festival for Keele students, where all aspects of the University were celebrated and shared. She said, “My idea for a film festival began after I became President and received multiple messages from various students about being filmmakers themselves. Medicine, business, and veterinary medicine students would tell me they loved making films and that they'd love to show some of them, but their friends weren't into it and film festivals were too expensive. I think it's really important to show student work, especially the creative ones, so my idea for a film festival as a place where all films are accepted was born.”  

Now in its second year, the festival has gathered more support, with lecturers from the School of Humanities & Social Sciences sharing details about the festival across the School, and Media colleagues promoting the event in Teams chats. Aliya said, “This year we had nine films from various courses - psychology, business, and of course, media. We kept it low cost by having no submission fee and showed all films sent in to encourage everyone to keep being creative and doing what they enjoy without barriers. All films have to have something to do with Keele, but we’re quite broad on that meaning. Films must be shot on campus, featuring Keele Hall or the Library, or Keele-related, like the aerial dance society or the SU quiz nights.”

Now that her degree is coming to an end, Aliya is looking forward to the next stage of her career once she returns to the United States. She said, “I've been working to get my TESOL certification alongside my degree at Keele, so I'd like to go into teaching. I've also applied to the EPIK program in South Korea to teach students there so I might be in a different country again! If not, I'd like to do social media or something similar for a company. I've also been selected to take part in a few film festivals back home in the US, so I'll continue to make and show my films. Recently, my short film Keepers, which is about zookeepers and AZA zoos, was selected to be shown at the Milwaukee Short Film Festival.

Winning Event of the Year for the Reel Festival at the SU Society Awards was the perfect way for Aliya to end her time at Keele. Discussing receiving the award she said, “It was really great to win, and quite unexpected. We won Most Improved Society last year, so I wasn’t sure if we’d win any more. I was very happy and grateful for my committee and their help and commitment to the creative students at Keele.”