International Film Series
Please join Arthur Nolletti, Jr., Professor Emeritus of English for a screening of international films on selected Thursdays evenings. Following each film, Dr. Nolletti leads a discussion on the evening’s feature.
September 30, 2010
STILL WALKING (Aruitemo, aruitemo, Japan; 2008)
Acclaimed director Kore-eda Hirokazu’s comedy-drama focuses on the Yokoyama family as it observes the fifteenth anniversary of the death of the eldest son. A beautifully nuanced examination of the love, resentments, joys, and tensions that define family, Still Walking is a deeply felt, richly comic work that recalls the family dramas of such past masters as Ozu, Naruse, and Gosho. In Japanese with English subtitles. (114 minutes.)
October 28, 2010
THE MAID (La Nana, Chile; 2009)
A Sundance Festival prizewinner, director Sebastián Silva’s social satire explores “the hived-off separation and inadvertent intimacy” that characterizes a live-in servant’s relationship with the family that employs her (Megan Regan, Cineaste [Winter 2009]). By turns outlandish, comic, and poignant, its central character (played with enormous conviction by Catalina Saavedra) is willing to do anything to protect her tiny domain. In Spanish with English subtitles. (95 minutes.)
March 24, 2011
35 SHOTS OF RUM (35 Rhums; France/Germany; 2008)
Set in a Paris housing project, director Claire Denis’s sublime, understated film deals with the close-knit relationship of a widower and his grown daughter who share the same flat, but know that soon they must go their separate ways. Typical of Denis’s work, these characters communicate less through talk than through a look or a simple touch of the hand. And while there are conflicts, they are invariably resolved with tact, tenderness, and love. In French and German with English subtitles. (100 minutes.)
April 28, 2011
LOURDES (Austria/France/Germany; 2009)
In director Jessica Hausner’s multi-award winning film, a young woman with multiple sclerosis, makes a pilgrimage to Lourdes, hoping for a miraculous cure and a new life. A parable of sorts, LOURDES is a fascinating investigation into the nature of faith itself. Shot on location, it is filled with mesmerizing images that emphasize the mundane and ordinary over the mysterious and divine. What happens in the end is something both haunting and unexpected. In French with English subtitles. (99 minutes.)
Film screenings are held at 7:00 p.m. in the Heineman Ecumencial and Cultural Center
Free Admission for Students, Faculty and Staff; General Admission: $5.00
