7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
(director Yilmuz Erdogan, 2003, 111 minutes)
A man is assigned to a remote Turkish village as the head librarian, only to discover that there is no library. Though the man, his wife and their wheelchair-bound daughter are welcomed, the village does not escape the impact of the political struggles in 1980s Turkey. “The biggest success of the Turkish movie industry.” − Le Monde
7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
(director Yilmaz Guney, 1982, 113 minutes)
This controversial, emotionally and politically charged film tells the story of five prison inmates who are granted a brief leave from prison to return to their homes in the Kurdish southeast. The director Yilmaz Guney, a Kurdish nationalist, wrote the script of the film while serving a prison sentence and arranged for the movie to be filmed in secret under the direction of a collaborator. Winner of the 1982 Palme d’Or at Cannes. “A harrowing look at what is portrayed as a land of harsh military rule and feudal codes” − Stephen Kinzer, The New York Times
7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
(director Reha Erdem, 2007, 111 minutes)
A subdued, sensitive portrayal of the intersecting lives of three young teenagers who must come to grips with life struggles in a traditional mountain village. The film is “bewitched by the rhythms of everyday life” (The Village Voice) and “packs a spiritual punch way beyond its placid surface” (Variety). Featuring an evocative score by the composer Arvo Part.
7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
(director Sim Süreyya and Muharrem Gülmez, 2006, 98 minutes)
In 1982, a time of political tension in Turkey, a musical troupe is hired to play for the arrival of a military leader in a small town and, by mistake, winds up celebrating the occasion with the Communist “Internationale” in this recent light comedy and love story.
7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
(director Fatih Akin, 2007, 122 minutes)
In a series of related stories, this German-Turkish co-production intriguingly interweaves the lives of six characters − two mothers, two daughters, a father and a son − moving back and forth between Bremen and Istanbul. The film features remarkable performances, including one by the great German actress Hanna Schygulla. “It has a cumulative power, both intellectual and emotional…By the end you know the characters in it so well that you can’t believe you’ve seen the movie only once….”—A.O. Scott, The New York Times
7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
(director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2002, 105 minutes)
With slow and careful persistence, Ceylan’s film gradually reveals the alienation and loneliness of a recently divorced Istanbul photographer, Mahmut, who is compelled to open his home and his life to a troublesome, aimless relative, Yusuf. This quiet, probing film meditates on “distance” in every sense of the word. Winner of the Grand Prize and two acting awards at Cannes.
7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
(director Omer Faruk Sorak, 2006, 120 minutes)
This immensely popular comedy depicts the exploits of five high school students who plot to steal university entrance exam questions, enlisting the help of the world’s boldest thief (played by Jean-Claude van Damme − really!).
7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
(director Abdullah Oguz, 2007, 105 minutes)
The film centers on a 17-year-old girl, Meryem, who is found unconscious and disheveled by a lake and then is forced to deal with her family’s suspicions that she has lost her chastity and an ancient moral code that condemns her to death. A distant cousin, Cemal, is ordered to carry out the task. Bliss is being screened in connection with a Jan. 15-16, 2015, visit to Missouri Southern by the author of the novel on which the movie is based, O.Z. Livaneli
Tuesday, February 24
The Big Deal on Madonna Street (I soliti ignoti) (Italy, 1960)
Mario Monicelli directed this hilarious satire of classic caper films. It details the plight of a group of bumbling thieves who fail in their efforts when they discover they don’t even own watches! The cast of this comedy of errors include Marcello Mastroianni, a poor photographer who baby-sits for his jailed wife; Vittorio Gassman, an unsuccessful boxer; Renato Salvatori, a popcorn seller; Toto, the great comic actor and Claudia Cardinale, at the beginning of her career. This Monicelli film had a huge success on the international market.\
Tuesday, March 10
Paisan (Paisa) (Italy, 1946)
This is Roberto Rossellini’s follow-up to Rome Open City in which we were introduced to the neorealist period in our recent Italian Film Festival. Paisan is an ambitious, enormously moving film which consists of six episodes set during the liberation of Italy at the end of World War II and taking place across the country from Sicily to the northern Po valley. The story is told of people and cultures formerly united in aim and locked in struggle, but too far separated culturally and historically to discover their common humanity. “Paisan is not only the fullest indication of the neorealist style but it is the most complete communication of the disillusion and emptiness, the death of hope, the sense of letdown and utter frustration that come out of the end of the war. It is in my estimation the greatest of the immediate postwar films”. (Bosley Crowther, New YorkTimes).
It was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes and First Prize at Venice and Brussels.
Tuesday, March 24
Poil de Carotte (Carrot Top) (France, 1925)
The master filmmaker Julien Duvivier filmed this story of childhood twice, once in 1925 as a silent film and then in 1932 as a sound film. These are among the few films that bear the rear soul of a child. In this household little Redhead makes mute appeal to the coldness of his mother who has born him illegitimately and for this reason lives with her husband in complete estrangement. Though they are classics from another era, these films offer a powerful story of child neglect still relevant today. Our film society screened an aging 16 mm print of the sound version in 1980 but this new digital restoration of the silent film is of mint quality. “…a powerful and important film…” (DVD BEAVER)
Tuesday, April 7
The Knights of the Teutonic Order (Krzyzacy) (Poland, 1960)
This is Aleksander Ford’s spectacular super-production of the medieval struggle at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 and the victory of the Poles and Lithuanians over the German warrior-monks of the Teutonic Order, bearers of aggressive Germanization. Due to the support by the management of Polish cinematography and size of the enterprise it rivaled similar productions from the United States and Western Europe at the time. The film, which was a success in its genre, received an enthusiastic audience all over Eastern Europe.
