Rachel Fleit (‘Bama Rush’) on how she came to be a part of her Crimson Tide sorority documentary [Exclusive Video Interview] – GoldDerby

When Rachel Fleit first set out to make her documentary, “Bama Rush,” she never thought that she would include herself in the actual movie. But as filming progressed, Fleit, who lives with alopecia, used her own past to bond with her subjects. “I would tell them my own personal story of belonging and just as a way to connect to them and build that kind of bond and trust that’s so important for filmmaking,” she tells Gold Derby during our recent chat (watch the exclusive video interview above).

It was in the middle of production that her editor told her that she should include her own story in the film to help humanize the young women in her project. “My goal was extreme empathy for these young women. I didn’t want to make them seem silly. I wanted to treat them with the utmost respect and admiration because I identified with them. I got it.”

“Bama Rush,” which can currently be streamed on Max, examines the history and process of how young women rush to join sororities on the campus of the University of Alabama. She does this by focusing on four young women who hope to receive a bid for a top-tier house as well speaking to the people who are currently members of the sororities on campus. Prior to “Bama Rush,” Fleit directed the 2021 documentary, “Introducing, Selma Blair.”

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The subject is something that Fleit had been wanting to explore for quite some time. “I wanted to make a documentary about the sorority system in America since 2018. I started to think what would it be like to be a young college woman in Greek life during this moment?” After completing her documentary about Selma Blair, the hashtag #BamaRush started blowing up on social media and Vice Studios asked if she wanted to visit Alabama and document it. “I was fascinated by the TikToks and I actually thought focusing on a specific place could allow me to make the kind of film that I wanted because I always want to make something that’s character driven.”

Fleit ran into a big speed bump when rumors started swirling on campus and social media that she was filming something that would amount to a hit-piece on the University of Alabama sororities. “The stress for me was that I needed to make sure that the young women that I was following were going to still trust me. There was one out of the four that decided that she no longer trusted us.” While filming the last part of rush was difficult, being able to film bid day, which is a public event, ended up being an amazing experience. “It was just full of joy and life. It was a good way to end things because ultimately this is a movie about belonging and bid day is like the ultimate day of belonging. You’re invited to join your house.”

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