However you might feel about college Greek life, seeing is believing. And once you come face to face with the University of Alabama phenomenon, the way seen in HBO’s new documentary “Bama Rush” (now streaming on Max), you may gain a new understanding.

Rachel Fleit, the doc’s director, set out to explore the sorority system in Tuscaloosa that went viral on TikTok the last two years. And while she certainly had her own idea of what that culture was from her own college experience, she set out to make a movie about what it’s like to be a modern woman.

In the film, Fleit follows four young women as they prepare for rush (UA’s annual sorority recruitment) in 2022.

MORE: 16 things we learned about Alabama sororities in ‘Bama Rush’

“In this nuanced and revealing documentary, Fleit explores the emotional complexities and stakes of belonging in this crucial window into womanhood,” HBO says. Fleit (who also made “Introducing, Selma Blair”) explores body image, race, class, social media pressures and the desire to belong through the lens of the Greek system.

Above all, her film unlocks identity, as women seek to find a sense of self and purpose. And while some find it and much more in sororities, some don’t.

Read our conversation with “Bama Rush” director Rachel Fleit below.

I’d like to start with your perception of Greek life on college campuses change during and after making this film. There are a few ways to look at it, I guess. There’s the low-hanging fruit for critics who hurl around terms like “Daddy’s Money” and talk about the would-be sinister side of things like The Machine and racial disparities, but also culturally, it’s an important rite of passage for thousands of women and their families for whom it creates opportunities, friendships and in some cases very bright futures. And it’s obviously such a spectacle. But what are your own personal feelings about this phenomenon?

Rachel Fleit: So I actually wanted to make a documentary about Greek life since 2018. I posed things about the Greek system actually during the Me Too movement. And I thought, what was it like to be a young woman in a sorority during the age of consent? And I thought the sorority system is such a good lightning rod to talk about all of these things that young women face. Whether it be their body image, their race, their class, their desire to belong, social media pressure, etc. And I really wanted to look into the Greek system because I knew in my heart a couple of things: One is that it was so much more than the way that media depicts Greek life. And then it’s so much more than the tropes we see in the mainstream media. If you went down there and took a deep dive into these young women’s lives, you would learn that they contain multitudes.

I just knew what I’d seen in movies and television. I was not part of Greek life. I went to a school in upstate New York. I majored in theatre. I was not in a sorority. But I always had a sneaking suspicion that underneath it all, we were all looking for a place to belong, a place we could call home that was a community of some kind. And once the TikTok sensation sort of blew up, I resumed my interest in this idea. I really wanted to pull back the curtain on these TikToks. They went viral all across the globe, but I knew beyond the pageantry of the TikToks there was a deep, profound theme to explore with each of these young women.

When I went down there, my perception of the Greek system…I wouldn’t say it changed, I think it just expanded. It’s so nuanced. The young women have extremely, incredible, transformative experiences from being in the Greek system. They experience real trauma and then the sisterhood at the University of Alabama envelopes them and gives them a place where they feel like they belong. And you’ll see other young women who’ve had different experiences that feel great.

My takeaway is that the sorority experience is so personal. Every single person has their own experience but also underneath it all is the human desire to belong. So whether or not you’re a young woman at the University of Alabama or you’re a middle-aged man or a woman who has no idea about this or wants to be a part of it, you can identify because you’re a human being on the Earth who has the desire to be a part of something bigger than yourself. So I think my view ultimately, to answer your question, just expanded from being down there.

I’m so fascinated, as I’m sure many others waiting to watch this are, in the secretive nature of the production. During recruitment last year, there were rumors that this was happening, that there might be a documentary being filmed. You heard about the hidden microphones. What were those strategy sessions like, talking to the women participating and the crew, embedding in that culture and peeling back another layer of access that had not been found before?

When I set out to make this documentary, I reached out to hundreds of young women at the University of Alabama, and I experienced immediate resistance. I was forward in saying I’d like to make a documentary about what it means to be a young woman right now. And I’m going to tell this story through the lens of the sorority system at the University of Alabama. This film is going so much more than rush. It’s going to be about what young women face right now in 2022, which is when we were filming at the time. And we’re going to look under the hood of the car and really examine this experience for you and this is an opportunity for you to feel heard and seen and tell your personal story. And I received a lot of resistance. The young women told me they weren’t allowed to speak to me, that there were strict rules against speaking to the media.

But there were quite a few young women who believed in my vision and trusted me. We had a very small, intimate crew, which is sort of my style as a filmmaker. I like to keep things small and intimate so that the young women in the film would feel safe and be honest and open up to me. We filmed with a small team for about nine months. And then we received another wave of extreme backlash with a false rumor on TikTok that were surreptitiously recording rush. And I’m not going to go too much into that, but the rumor was so prominent and so intense that it does become a part of the film. There was no way to not incorporate that in the storytelling. It became quite the character, let’s say, in the film.

Was there a shift in tone in how you told this story during production? I’m sure that happens on any project, especially making documentaries where unexpected things happen. But did this start as a lighter look at the spectacle of Southern sororities and change when you embedded yourselves in it and things like The Machine and racial disparities in the organizations’ histories emerged?

I stuck to my intention. My intention was I’m going to make a documentary about what it means to be a young woman right now, and I’m going to do it through the lens of the sorority system at the University of Alabama. But as I went down there, I did learn a larger picture of what the system entails. There is a really intense history in Greek life at the University of Alabama. It’s important to tell the full story as a documentary filmmaker who is committed to the truth. Of course I learned about the Machine, and it felt like you couldn’t tell the story about the University of Alabama sorority system without talking about the Machine. But really what I was most struck by was my biggest surprise or shift for me is that I identified so much with these young women. I really felt for them. I really felt like I, too, have done so many things to belong. When I was younger, I would look at sorority women as, ‘They’re nothing like me.’ And as I made this documentary I said, oh we’re all so similar. Our exterior appearance might be different, but underneath, we’re so much the same. And that was my big takeaway that really shaped the narrative of the story.

In the trailer, you hear a voice ask what someone is filming for, presumably someone with UA asking about your crew. What was the UA response to the production? When did they find out? Did you hear from them as you were filming, and what have you heard from them since you finished with the documentary premiering next week?

You’ll see the communication between the film’s crew and the University of Alabama in the film. We filmed where we were invited into and we filmed on public property. You’ll see in the film our interactions with UA.

Was there ever any anxiety or even any risk where you felt like the film might fall apart if the women were identified? What was Plan B? And in terms of anxiety and risk for the women participating — all the potential and opportunities this process can create for young women — there is obviously inherent risk. What were those conversations like about agreeing to that vision you mentioned and moving ahead with the project?

When you watch the film, you’ll see how this rumor becomes this character in the documentary. The rumor created quite a stir. Luckily for me, most of the young women I was filming with, understood that we were not doing what this TikTok rumor was saying we were doing. They understood and believed that I still was the same filmmaker for nine months and I wasn’t doing something like secretly mic’ing girls and recording rush conversations or getting inside of the houses or doing that stuff the rumors alleged we were doing. But what also happened was The New York Times wrote an article about the drama at Bama rush involving a secret HBO documentary, and they actually named me in the article. And you’ll also see in the film that I have a very distinguishable characteristic that makes me impossible not to spot. (Note: Fleit has alopecia.) And so the producers of the film and myself and my team, we feared for our physical safety. There was so much backlash. It felt actually like things could get violent, to be honest, and they sent a security detail to be with me at all times while I was filming rush. So it got pretty intense. So with security team was sent to ensure that I was safe, that my film crew was safe and that the subjects were safe. And we didn’t announce the film until the trailer just keeping safety in mind.

What did you think of Bid Day? It’s like a gameday scene in Tuscaloosa. You have thousands of people there screaming. There’s a joyous feeling. It’s really a sight to see. What were your thoughts on the Bid Day experience?

I love Bid Day. I have to say, it was such a triumphant day. You could feel the energy, you could feel the excitement, you could feel the joy. At the center of my movie is the desire to belong, right? And Bid Day is this moment of these young women finding their home, where they belong, getting excited to be part of this community. And you can really feel that in the air. During Bid Day, we did film on public property and sidewalks the joy of these young women. And it was the first day of the full filming period during rush where you didn’t have that pressure from this rumor, because we could just be part of the celebration, which is really what I wanted the whole time, to capture all of the feelings of sorority recruitment. And I really honestly, when I think back to Bid Day, I just have such a big smile on my face. You can see all of these young women so happy, their families so happy and the hugging, the jumping around and the singing and running. It’s amazing.

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More on Bama Rush:

How to decode Bama Rush TikToks. What’s a PNM?

See vintage photos from Alabama rush bid day

Bama Rush by the numbers: How much does it cost to join a UA sorority?

Photos: The last 10 years of Alabama Bid Day

Meet the Alabama sororities