UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE

FALL 2009 INTERNATIONAL FILM SERIES

Screenings on SUNDAYS, 7.30 in the TRABANT UNIVERSITY CENTER THEATER.

ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

Featuring 35mm prints and projected DVDS. All foreign language films are shown with subtitles. The International Film Series is made possible by the generous support of the Committee on Cultural Activities and Public Events (CAPE).

 

OCTOBER 11: A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS. Director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club) returns to his low-budget indie roots with this film about an older Chinese man who comes to America to visit the recently divorced daughter he barely knows. Mr. Shi (Henry O) has little patience with his daughter's (Faye Yu) relationship with a married man—until, that is, he becomes friends with an Iranian Woman (Vida Ghahremani). Then, he decides, the culture divide might not be so bad after all.

OCTOBER 18: NECESSITIES OF LIFE Dir. Benoit Pilon. This festival favorite is an emotionally resonant 1950s period drama from French Canada which shines a light on people and a culture not often seen on screen. After falling victim to tuberculosis, Tivii, an Inuit family man, is forced to leave his home and loved ones on Baffin Island to receive treatment in Quebec City

OCTOBER 25: MARY AND MAX Animated Drama from Australia. Mary (voice of Toni Collette) is a shy and withdrawn Austrian girl. Max (voice of Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a middle-aged single Jewish New Yorker suffering from Asperger’s syndrome. Two lonely people who strike up an unlikely pen-pal friendship in this darkly humorous animated tale.

NOVEMBER 1: THE WAVE In 1967, a California teacher conducted a bold classroom experiment to demonstrate to his students how easily Hitler was able to use rhetoric and fear to inspire a whole country to follow him and how easily it could happen again. This true event became the basis for a book and a highly-rated TV special. Denis Gansel's acclaimed new film transfers the story to present-day Germany where the students have grown-up inundated with the stories and lessons of the Third Reich. In spite of this knowledge, the German teens are just as susceptible to the allure of Fascism.

NOVEMBER 8: RUMBA: Fiona and Dorn are teachers in a country school. They share a passion for Latin dance and spend their weekend nights sweeping up all the local trophies, until one evening, returning from a competition, they chance upon a maladroit would-be suicide, and their lives begin to change. This hilarious and touching story of a strange threesome is beautifully filmed in bright and elegant color giving it a naïve and lovely poetry. A heart warmer without schmaltz.

NOVEMBER 15: A FILM WITH ME IN IT. Dir: Ian Fitzgibbon. Mark Doherty and Irish comic star Dylan Moran “Try to cope with the mounting body count resulting from freak accidents they didn't cause but, if discovered, will make them look like murderers, “in this “gleefully cruel Irish black comedy.”

NOVEMBER 22: SIN NOMBRE is an epic dramatic thriller written and directed by Student Academy Award winner Cary Joji Fukunaga in his feature debut. The film maker's first hand experiences with Central American immigrants seeking the promise of the US form the basis of the Spanish language mopvie. “Sin Nombre” tells the story of Sayra, a teenager living in Honduras, and hungering for a brighter future. A reunion with her long-estranged father gives Sayra her only real option—emigrating with her father and her uncle into Mexico and then the United States where her father now has a new family.

NOVEMBER 29: KATYN a competitor for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film this courageous film depicts the Katyn massacre perpetrated on Stalin's orders to eliminate the fine flower of Polish intelligentsia. Thousands of Polish officers were massacred in a forest, including the father of director Andres Wadja. “Searing and devastating” New York Times

 

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The International Film Series is run by an interdisciplinary committee of UD Faculty, Staff, and Students. The 2008/09 Committee roster is as follows:

Michael Cotsell, English Department (Chair)

Marie Gleason, Program Coordinator, Center for International Studies

Carla Guerron-Montero, Anthropology Department

Kevin Kerrane, English Department

Claire McCabe, English Department

 

Thea Ogunusi, Multicultural Programs

Series Assistant: TBA

 

SCPAB Films