International Lens

Tuesday, After Christmas

oits — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:22:37 +0000

Wednesday, April 17
Presented by: Jennifer Fay, Director of Film Studies
Romania (2010) Dir: Radu Mantean. The Romanian New Wave of the past decade has yielded many internationally acclaimed gems. Add to them this elegant, emotionally resonant drama of a middle-class couple whose marriage is rocked by the husband’s illicit affair with their daughter’s sexy dentist. In scorchingly intense long takes, the power dynamics among these three are unpredictable and, in the end, devastating. The fact that the two leads are actually a married couple adds to the verisimilitude. Romanian with English subtitles. Not Rated. 99 mins. Funding provided by Nashville Premieres.

Return to Paradise

oits — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:22:09 +0000

Tuesday, April 9
Presented by: Myrna Wooders, Professor of Economics
USA (1998) Dir: Joseph Ruben. A thriller that traps its characters in an exquisite dilemma involving life and death. Three Americans meet in Malaysia and fool around on the beach enjoying rum, girls, and hashish. Two return to New York while the third plans to go on for a Greenpeace project. Instead, he’s arrested for possession of the leftover hash and sentenced to death. Poses a moral quandry that has awful consequences no matter what each man chooses to do. Dense, twisty, and smashingly potent. English. Rated R. 111 mins. DVD.

Kingdom Come

oits — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:21:42 +0000

Friday, April 5 @ 7:30 p.m. @ Buttrick Theater
Hosted by: Jonathan Rattner, Assistant Professor, Film Studies Program
Presented by: John Lyons Murphy, co-director of the documentary and producer of Broken Kingdom
USA (2011) Dir: Paiman Kalayeh, John Lyons Murphy Kingdom. Come follows a first-time director (Daniel Gillies) as he tries to raise a million dollars to finance his first film, Broken Kingdom. This emotionally-charged journey is interwoven with over 30 rare interviews from acclaimed indie darlings including Mark Ruffalo, Illeana Douglas, Don Cheadle, Kevin Smith, Edward Burns, Tim Roth, Morgan Spurlock, Selma Blair, Robert Townsend, Bill Pullman and many more. English. Unrated. 87 minutes. DVD.

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oits — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:21:42 +0000

Tuesday, April 2
Presented by: Sherif Barsoum, Director, International Student & Scholar Services
Egypt (2010) Dir: Mohamed Diab. A raw side of Egypt that the world has barely seen. Unfolds the poignant story of three women and their search for justice from the daily plight of sexual harassment. When one of the women resorts to stabbing harassers in the groin, she becomes a phantasmal hero that causes a nationwide stir. Arabic with English subtitles. Unrated. 103 mins. DVD.

Departures

oits — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:21:03 +0000

Saturday, March 30 @ 10 p.m. @ The Commons
Presented by: Global Perspectives Student Organization
Japan (2008) Dir: Yojiro Takita. An out-of-work cellist accepts a job as an undertaker in order to provide for himself and his young wife. Daigo answers a classified ad for a company called “Departures,” mistakenly assuming that he will be working for a travel agency. Upon discovering that he will be preparing the bodies of the recently deceased for their trip to the afterlife, he accepts the position as gatekeeper between life and death and gains a greater appreciation for life. Japanese with English subtitles. Rated PG-13. 131 mins. DVD. Funding provided in part by Global Perspectives Student Organization.

Distant

oits — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:20:31 +0000

Thursday, March 28
Presented by: Turkish Student Association
Turkey (2002) Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Superlatives are warranted for this Turkish arthouse drama which is filled with a palpable sense of loss and yearning. Written, produced, photographed, edited, and directed by Ceylan, it’s the story of an unemployed young man from the countryside who comes to a wintry, present-day Istanbul in search of work on the ships. He stays with his divorced cousin, a successful yet cynical photographer, who’s soon irritated at having his solitary routine disrupted by the presence of his rural relative. Turkish with English subtitles. Unrated. 110 mins.

An Evening with Robert Beavers

oits — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:19:08 +0000

Thursday, March 21
Presented by: Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos and the Film Studies Program
USA Robert Beavers is an American filmmaker, born and raised in Massachusetts. He moved to New York in 1965 to pursue filmmaking, and lived there until 1967 when he and his partner, Gregory Markopoulos, left the United States for Europe, where they continued to live and make films until Markopoulos’ death in 1992. Both filmmakers restricted the screenings of their films after leaving America, and instead held yearly screenings of their work from 1980–1986 in Greece. After Markopoulos’ death, Beavers founded Temenos, Inc., a non-profit devoted to the preservation of Markopoulos’ and Beavers’ work. Screenings and discussion with Beavers present of The Stoas, The Ground, The Suppliant, and Pitcher of Colored Light. 71 mins.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

oits — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:15:01 +0000

Wednesday, March 13^thPresented by: Vanderbilt Speakers Committee, Microfinance club, Manna, Grassroots and Global Poverty Initiative
Liberia, USA (2008) Dir: Gini Reticker. The extraordinary story of a small band of Liberian women who came together in the midst of a bloody civil war, took on the violent warlords and corrupt Charles Taylor regime, and won a long-awaited peace for their shattered country in 2003. English. Not rated. 72 mins. DVD. Presented as part of IMPACT Symposium 2013, themed “Dimensions of Peace and Conflict”. Free dinner before the screening. Tickets for the Impact Symposium are free to Vanderbilt students, faculty and staff. Two free tickets may be picked up with a Vanderbilt I.D. at the Sarratt Student Center box office. Tickets for the general public are $10 at the Sarratt box office or any Ticketmaster outlet. Tickets also may be purchased at www.ticketmaster.com. Non-Vanderbilt students with a college or university I.D. may purchase tickets for $5 at the Sarratt box office or any Ticketmaster outlet.

Long Night’s Journey into Day

oits — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:14:37 +0000

Tuesday, March 12
Presented by: Clive Mentzel, Director of the Office of Active Citizenship & Service, and Frank Dobson, Director of the Bishop Johnson Black Cultural Center
South Africa (2000) Dir: Deborah Hoffman & Frances Reid. This documentary tells four stories of Apartheid in South Africa, as seen through the eyes of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. White soldiers who have killed ANC activists, black activists who have killed whites in political attacks: can there be forgiveness when the full truth comes out? Wrenching and powerful material. English and Afrikaans with English subtitles. Unrated. 94 mins. DVD.

Meet the Fokkens

oits — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:10:18 +0000

Wednesday, February 27
Presented by: Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center
The Netherlands (2011) Dir: Gabrielle Provaas and Rob Schroder. Louise and Martine Fokkens are 70-year-old identical twins and the oldest prostitutes in Amsterdam’s Red Light District. They have been thrust into the spotlight with the release of this documentary about their lives in which they share secrets of selling sex. They freed themselves from the control of their pimps, ran their own brothel, and set up the first informal trade union for prostitutes. A rollicking and revealing look at the world’s oldest profession in the 21st century. Dutch with English subtitles. Unrated. 80 mins. DVD.