Film Studies

Russian Department research associate Jana Klenhova Rogoff (Humboldt University, Berlin), a specialist in early Russian cinema, will speak on the first Russian "talkies" on Monday, Jan. 28, at 7:00 pm in Room 117, Sills Hall. Her talk, "Can We Listen to Symphonies with Our Eyes? Early Soviet Sound Cinema and Censorship", focuses on the career of avant-garde film maker Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, who ran afoul of the Soviet authorities in the 1930s, only to be rediscovered in the 21st century. Ms. Rogoff will screen two of Tsekahnovsky's short experimental sound films, one of which was recently found unexpectedly in a Prague archive she is one of the first scholars in the world to study it.

This event is co-sponsored by the Russian Department, Film Studies, and faculty of Eurasian & East European Studies, and is open to the public free of charge.

Join us for the Latin American and Spanish Film Festival. Celebrate the culture and the language and expand your understanding of world cinema!

Every evening from Monday January 28th through Friday, February 1st, 2013, view a new Spanish-language film presented by Bowdoin faculty members from Romance Languages, Music, Anthropology, Latin American Studies, History, and Film Studies.

Kicking off the film festival, Elena Cueto-Asin, Associate Professor and Chair of Romance Languages, presents an epic about the life of a Spanish playwright, novelist, and poet:

LOPE
Though lesser known than his contemporary Miguel de Cervantes, Felix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio was a prolific Spanish playwright, novelist, and poet who dominated the theater scene during Spain's Baroque period.

This romantic epic has a stellar cast of renowned Spanish actors including Pedro Almodovar favorite Leonor Watling, Luis Tosar, Antonio de la Torre, Pilar Lopez de Ayala, and Sonia Braga. And Alberto Amman brings tremendous passion to the role of Lope, the incorrigible but endearing Casanova.

This multi-award winning film brings to life the amorous adventurer who was constantly derailed by his passion for women as he struggled to establish himself as a playwright.

(Andrucha Waddington, 106 minutes, Drama/Biopic, 2010, Spanish with English subtitles)

Sponsored by a grant from the Spanish Film Club, the Blythe Bickel Edwards fund, Latin American Studies Program, Bowdoin Film Society, Department of Romance Languages, Latin American Student Organization, Film Studies Program, Department of English, and Department of Music.

The Spanish Film Club series was made possible with the support of Pragda, the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain, and its Program for Cultural Cooperation with United States' Universities.

Join us for the Latin American and Spanish Film Festival, celebrate the culture and the language, and expand your understanding of world cinema!

The film festival continues on the second night with a film-within-a-film about Columbus, the subjugation of  Bolivian indigenous people, and a modern-day water crisis that threatens them. Presented by Elizabeth Shesko, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in History and Latin American Studies.

TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA (EVEN THE RAIN)
Filmmaker Sebastian (Gael Garca Bernal) and his cynical producer Costa (Luis Tosar) arrive in Cochabamba, Bolivia to make a film about Columbus's voyage to the New World and the subjugation of the indigenous population. Just as filming begins, the natives face a crisis when the government privatizes the water company and prices skyrocket. Daily protests erupt and the local man cast as a rebellious sixteenth century Taino chief becomes a leader in the protests.

This film-within-a-film intercuts footage from Sebastian's film with recordings of actual demonstrations that occurred during the "Water Wars" in 2000, when the Bolivian government privatized the water company. Anchored in the philosophies of historian Howard Zinn, as well as the stories of 16th century priests Fathers Bartolome de las Casas and Antonio Montesinos, EVEN THE RAIN blurs the lines between past and present, fiction and reality.

The script by long-time Ken Loach collaborator Paul Laverty and stellar performances from Luis Tosar, Gael Garca Bernal, Carlos Adurivi and Karra Elejalde propelled EVEN THE RAIN to become Spain's submission for the 2011 Academy Awards.

(Iciar Bollain, 104 minutes, Drama, 2010, Spanish with English subtitles)

Sponsored by a grant from the Spanish Film Club, the Blythe Bickel Edwards fund, Latin American Studies Program, Bowdoin Film Society, Department of Romance Languages, Latin American Student Organization, Film Studies Program, Department of English, and Department of Music.

The Spanish Film Club series was made possible with the support of Pragda, the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain, and its Program for Cultural Cooperation with United States' Universities.

Join us for the Latin American and Spanish Film Festival, celebrate the culture and the language, and expand your understanding of world cinema!

On the third night of the film festival, Krista VanVleet, Associate Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the Latin American Studies Program, shows us a film that explores love, masculinity, and sexuality within the context of Peruvian tradition:

CONTRACORRIENTE (UNDERTOW)
Beloved and handsome fisherman Miguel lives with his pregnant wife, Mariela, in Cabo Blanco, a small fishing village in Northern Peru. What no one knows is that Miguel is also having a passionate affair with Santiago, a painter ostracized from the community for his agnostic views and open homosexuality.

When Santiago drowns accidentally in the ocean's strong undertow, he's unable to pass peacefully to the other side so he returns after his death to ask Miguel to look for his body and bury it according to the rituals of the town. Miguel must choose between sentencing Santiago to eternal torment or honor his request and, in turn, reveal their relationship to Mariela and the entire village.

UNDERTOW examines the complicated intersection of love, masculinity, sexuality, and tradition and has received an outpouring of critical acclaim and numerous awards.

(Javier Fuentes-Leon, 100 minutes, Drama, 2009, Spanish with English subtitles)

Sponsored by a grant from the Spanish Film Club, the Blythe Bickel Edwards fund, Latin American Studies Program, Bowdoin Film Society, Department of Romance Languages, Latin American Student Organization, Film Studies Program, Department of English, and Department of Music.

The Spanish Film Club series was made possible with the support of Pragda, the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain, and its Program for Cultural Cooperation with United States' Universities.

Join us for the Latin American and Spanish Film Festival, celebrate the culture and the language, and expand your understanding of world cinema!

For the fourth night of the film festival, Michael Birenbaum Quintero, Assistant Professor of Music, presents an animated love story and introduces us to the music, culture, and people of Cuba:

CHICO Y RITA
Oscar-winning director Fernando Trueba and Barcelona designer and artist Javier Mariscal have teamed up to make CHICO AND RITA, an animated love story starring the music, culture, and people of Cuba.

When dashing piano player Chico meets beautiful Havana nightclub singer Rita, sparks fly and they fall madly in love. Their romance unfolds as they perform on the glamorous stages of 1940s-1950s Havana, New York City, Las Vegas, Hollywood, and Paris. Accompanying them is an amazing soundtrack featuring the music of jazz legends Thelonious Monk, Cole Porter, Dizzy Gillespie and Freddy Cole (brother of Nat King Cole), performed by a range of contemporary musicians, including Idania Valds, Carlos Sarduy Horacio Hernndez, Rolando Luna, Germn Velazco, Jorge Reyes, and Chano Pozo.

CHICO AND RITA pays tribute to a vibrant and colorful time in the history of Cuba and jazz.

(Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal & Tono Errando, 94 minutes, Animation, 2010, Spanish and English with English subtitles)

Sponsored by a grant from the Spanish Film Club, the Blythe Bickel Edwards fund, Latin American Studies Program, Bowdoin Film Society, Department of Romance Languages, Latin American Student Organization, Film Studies Program, Department of English, and Department of Music.

The Spanish Film Club series was made possible with the support of Pragda, the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain, and its Program for Cultural Cooperation with United States' Universities.

Join us for the Latin American and Spanish Film Festival, celebrate the culture and the language, and expand your understanding of world cinema!

A surreal black comedy set in Chile, presented by Sarah Childress, Film Studies Research Associate, wraps up a week of riveting, thought-provoking, and entertaining Latin American and Spanish films.

POST MORTEM
Pablo Larrain first broke onto the international film scene when TONY MANERO premiered at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight, and he has another hit with his most recent film NO, a winner at Cannes, an official Sundance selection, and Chile's entry at the Academy Awards.

The Chilean director's sophomore effort is the visceral POST MORTEM, which competed at the 2011 Venice Film Festival. Mario Cornejo is going about his daily business of writing autopsy reports at the military hospital in Santiago when the Pinochet coup d' etat shakes him out of his political apathy. Neither a reconstruction of the Pinochet days nor an angry denunciation of the period, POST MORTEM is a surreal black comedy that shows how easy it is for ordinary people to participate in atrocities, either as victims, collaborators, or both.

(Pablo Larrain, 98 minutes, Drama, 2010, Spanish with English Subtitles)

Sponsored by a grant from the Spanish Film Club, the Blythe Bickel Edwards fund, Latin American Studies Program, Bowdoin Film Society, Department of Romance Languages, Latin American Student Organization, Film Studies Program, Department of English, and Department of Music.

The Spanish Film Club series was made possible with the support of Pragda, the Secretary of State for Culture of Spain, and its Program for Cultural Cooperation with United States' Universities.

TOMBOY

7:00 p.m.
Beam Classroom, Visual Arts Center

A sensitive portrait of childhood just before pubescence, Tomboy, the second film by writer-director Céline Sciamma, astutely explores the freedom of being untethered to the rule-bound world of gender codes. About 20 minutes elapse before we learn the real name and biological sex of Laure, a gangly, short-haired kid about to go into fourth grade. Her family has just moved to a suburban apartment complex a few weeks before the school year starts. The clan’s relocation provides Laure an opportunity for re-invention, introducing herself to her playmates as Michaël —an identity that gives her the liberty to go shirtless and wrestle with the other boys, attracting the attention of crushed-out Lisa. Sciamma shows a real gift for capturing kids at play, filming the August afternoons devoted to soccer and water battles as their own otherworldly time zone. But the director doesn’t present an uncomplicated view of childhood: Laure/ Michaël, beginning to reciprocate Lisa’s smitten feelings, lives in anxiety of being found out as much as she revels in being a boy. Extremely empathic, Tomboy isn’t simply an earnest plea for tolerance: Childhood itself, the film intimates, is full of ambiguities, of sorting out what you are drawn to and what repels you.

Chasing Ice-- a film screening
Saturday, March 2 7:00 pm
Kresge Auditorium

In the spring of 2005, acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment for National Geographic: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth's changing climate. Even with a scientific upbringing, Balog had been a skeptic about climate change. But that first trip north opened his eyes to the biggest story in human history and sparked a challenge within him that would put his career and his very well-being at risk.

Chasing Ice is the story of one man's mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world's changing glaciers.

As the debate polarizes America and the intensity of natural disasters ramps up globally, Balog finds himself at the end of his tether. Battling untested technology in subzero conditions, he comes face to face with his own mortality. It takes years for Balog to see the fruits of his labor. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Chasing Ice depicts a photographer trying to deliver evidence and hope to our carbon-powered planet.

This event is open to the public free of charge.

StunningTimely--A solitary quest with global implications. [A Critics' Pick] - Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times

In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park. They spent between 6 and 13 years in prison before a serial rapist confessed that he alone had committed the crime, leading to their convictions being overturned.

Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, The Central Park Five will tell the story of that horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories and an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice.

WEAVING WORLDS highlights the untold stories of the personalities and characters involved in the making and selling of Navajo rugs. The film presents a compelling and intimate portrait of economic and cultural survival through the art of weaving in the face of increased globalization. Director BENNIE KLAIN has a keen and compassionate eye, and he allows viewers into the world of indigenous artists and their struggle to maintain pride and cultural vitality through creating their textiles and "reweaving the world." The result is a poignant digital portrait of Navajo artisans and their unique-and often controversial-relationship with white Reservation traders.

Please join us for a film screening of Edge of America and conversation with Chris Eyre, director of Smoke Signals.  Eyre, considered to be the preeminent Native American filmmaker of his time, has received numerous accolades for Edge of American including the Peabody Award, a Writer's Guild Award, and a Humanitus Prize. It premiered in the highly coveted opening night film at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.  

Hank Lentfer will discuss the challenges of conservation work in our increasingly consumptive culture, and how having an attachment to place and community can give us greater hope for the future. Using images and sounds gathered from a life embedded on Alaska's wild edge, Hank will explore the role of beauty and wonder to inspire the work of conservation.

Hosted at Bowdoin by the English and History Departments and the Environmental Studies Program. Offered collaboratively by the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust & The Nature Conservancy. Open to the public free of charge.

Nenette, Kresge Auditorium, VAC, 7 p.m. Screening followed by a discussion. Free of charge. Open to the public. In this unsentimental documentary, Nicolas Philibert asks that viewers ponder the listlessness of his titular subject, a large, morose Orangutan, who has impassively looked out at spectators from captivity nearly her entire life. Watching Nenette watch those who gape at her is an endlessly intruiging, multi-layered exercise in voyeurism.

Now playing at more than 300 universities, see the film that's changing the global energy conversation. Nonpartisan, yet revolutionary, Switch united diverse audiences in a shared understanding of energy.

In Switch, Dr. Scott Tinker gets the straight answers to our most controversial energy questions. He explores the world's premier sites for all energies; coal to solar, oil to biofuels. He talks to the people driving energy today; international leaders of government, industry, and academia. In the end, he cuts through the confusion to discover a oath to our energy future as surprising as it is practical.

Every energy resource- fossil, nuclear and renewable- is undergoing profound changes. And overall, we're gradually shifting from coal and oil to the energies of tomorrow. This sweeping transition is the subject of switch. But rather than advocate for how it should happen, Switch travels the world to discover how it most likely will happen. Switch is also about a changing energy conversation. Today, it's polarized and unproductive. Finally, Switch is about changing the way we use energy, to realize the many economic and environmental benefits of efficiency.

See the trailer and learn more at the website
Smart and refreshingly free of hot air- Washington Post
An admirable job untangling the issues- Los Angeles Times