INTERNATIONAL LENS, a film series with a global perspective, provides a forum to promote conversation among Vanderbilt’s diverse students, faculty, staff, and the greater Nashville community. International Lens endeavors to transcend geographic, linguistic, ethnic, religious, and political boundaries by encouraging conversation and greater cross-cultural understanding through cinema.
The series is organized by the Department of Cinema & Media Arts in collaboration with College of Arts and Science, Dean of Students offices, and other departments, centers, and programs across the University.
There is no charge for admission.
Films are screened in Sarratt Cinema at 7:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted.
SPRING 2026 Schedule of Films
MLK/FBI
Thursday, January 22
USA (2020) Dir: Sam Pollard
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as an American hero: a bridge-builder, a shrewd political tactician, and a moral leader. Yet throughout his history-altering political career, he was often treated by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies like an enemy of the state. This fascinating documentary lays out a detailed account of the FBI surveillance that dogged King’s activism throughout the ’50s and ’60s, fueled by the racist and red-baiting paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover. Unafraid of moral judgment but also attentive to the fine grain of ambiguity that clings to the facts, the film invites you to think about how what happened then might help explain where we are today. English. 106 min.
Tori And Lokita
Thursday, January 29
Belgium (2022) Dir: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Winner of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival comes the story of seventeen-year-old Lokita and twelve-year-old Tori, two immigrants—from Cameroon and Benin, respectively—whose sibling-like bond is the only resource they can depend on in their struggle for survival on the margins of European society. The inseparable pair work as performers in a cheap trattoria, dealing drugs on the side for the restaurant’s abusive cook, while balancing the demands of an indifferent bureaucracy and a band of violent smugglers. French with English subtitles. 89 min.
Angry Inuk
Thursday, February 5
Canada (2016) Dir: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril
Exploring seal hunting’s vital role for Inuit communities, their dependence on sealskin income, and how global anti-sealing movements have affected their livelihoods, an Inuk filmmaker joins a new tech-savvy generation of Inuit as they campaign to challenge long-established perceptions of seal hunting. Armed with social media and their own sense of humour and justice, the group brings its own voice into the conversation and presents themselves to the world as a modern people in dire need of a sustainable economy. Inuktitut with English subtitles. 85 min.
Screening in collaboration with the Indigenous Studies Seminar at Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities
2nd annual Point Of VU Student Film Festival
Saturday, February 14 @ 10:00am
POINT OF VU Student Film Festival (pointofvusff.wordpress.com) is Vanderbilt’s premier student-organized film event, celebrating the creativity and vision of emerging filmmakers from across Middle Tennessee. Founded to spotlight diverse and daring storytelling by local students, the festival offers a platform for emerging student filmmakers to showcase work that challenges, entertains, and inspires in a competitive environment, with the goal of fostering connections between students in the region. Building on last year’s inaugural event, the 2nd annual POINT OF VU festival hopes to welcome an even broader mix of students, faculty, and community members to a variety of screenings, panels, guest speakers, and other festival events offering networking opportunities hosted by working professionals in the region.
12.12: The Day
Thursday, February 19
South Korea (2023) Dir: Kim Sung-su
After the assassination of President Park Chung-hee, a dictator who maintained rule from a coup d’état in 1961 until his death at the hands of one of his own, martial law was declared. Defense Security Commander Chun Doo-kwang and a private band of officers following him organize their own coup. Lee Tae-shin, a stubborn Capital Garrison Command commander who believes soldiers should not take political action, fights against Chun to stop him, all amidst political turmoil and betrayal in this historical thriller based upon the tense, 12-hour military coup in Seoul on December 12, 1979. Korean with English subtitles. 141 min.
Screening in collaboration with the Korean Graduate Students and Scholars Association (KSSA)
It Was Just an Accident
Thursday, February 26
Iran, France, Luxembourg (2025) Dir: Jafar Panahi
An unassuming mechanic is suddenly reminded of his time in an Iranian prison when he has a chance encounter with a man he strongly suspects to be his sadistic jailhouse captor. Panicked, he rounds up a few of his fellow ex-prisoners and they kidnap the suspected captor. But ambiguity about the man’s guilt and their shared trauma sparks a tense moral debate over revenge, justice, and mercy as they drive through Tehran in this deeply felt moral thriller, where high stakes tension combines with unexpected flurries of humor and thoughtful questions regarding persecution and revenge. Persian and Azerbaijani, with English Subtitles. 104 min.
Spacewoman
Thursday, March 19
USA (2024) Dir: Hannah Berryman
Astronaut Eileen Collins was the first woman to pilot and command an American spacecraft. Born on the other side of the tracks in upstate New York, she smashed many glass ceilings in the US Air Force and at NASA during her career, culminating in four increasingly dramatic and dangerous space shuttle missions. With an incredible set of archival materials, intimate interviews, and a moving score, this nail-biting film shares the emotional journey experienced by Eileen’s family and asks the philosophical question about what level of risk is acceptable in human endeavor. English. 100 min.
Screening in collaboration with the Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center
Until the Stones Speak
Thursday, March 26
Korea (2022) Dir: Kim Kyungman
Wrongly incarcerated for crimes they did not commit during the 1948 Jeju Uprising, a group of five women finally lift the veil on what actually transpired. The Jeju April 3 massacre not only took the lives of a tenth of the entire Jeju Island population, but it also turned the innocent into prisoners without trial. It was only seventy years later that they were acquitted through a retrial. As the five grandmothers tell their stories of the unspeakable loss and tragedy, the horrific scenes of their experiences are brought back to life. Korean with English Subtitles. 100 min.
Filmmaker will be in attendance (virtually) for a Q&A following the screening. Sponsored by the Department of Asian Studies
The Alabama Solution
Thursday, April 2
USA (2025) Dir: Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman
Composed primarily of contraband cell phone footage taken by incarcerated men at correctional facilities across the state, this film exposes the inhumane conditions, systemic injustice, and brutal treatment of those behind bars in the Alabama prison system told through their own voices and stories. Focusing on the death of inmate Steven Davis, his mother’s quest for justice, and incarcerated leaders organizing for change using contraband phones, the film expertly weaves the pressing issues of prison privatization, inmate slave labor, government corruption, and extreme violence together to give a real sense of the abhorrent conditions of our fellow human beings. English. 115 min.
Monster
Thursday, April 9
Japan (2023) Dir: Hirokazu Koreeda
When a single mother’s young son starts to behave strangely at home, his mother feels that there is something wrong at school. Discovering that a teacher may be responsible, she storms into the school demanding to know what is going on with her son. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher, and child, the truth gradually emerges, revealing a complex story of misunderstanding, hidden friendships, bullying, and the search for truth, challenging initial perceptions and exploring themes of societal pressure, identity, and acceptance. Japanese with English subtitles. 127 min.
Films are 7:30pm in Sarratt Cinema unless otherwise noted
In order to keep our community safe, please do not attend any of our screenings if you are feeling unwell.