WESTCHESTER COMMUNITY COLLEGE PRESENTS SPRING FILM SERIES
Westchester Community
College’s Spring 2008 season of the Friday Night
Film Series features six outstanding recent films. It includes a brief
introduction, program notes, and discussions. Performances begin at 8:00
p.m. in the Academic Arts Theatre. A season subscription costs only $48; for
senior citizens over 60, the cost is $42.
A single admission, when available, is $9; and for seniors, just $8.
Professor Bill Costanzo is your host. For further information, call
914-606-6700. Infrared listening
devices are available at the box office.
AVENUE
MONTAIGNE (France, 2007) on April 11. If you
miss the old Paris,
you’ll enjoy this affectionate comedic drama by director Danièle Thompson
and her screenwriter son. The city’s Right Bank is the perfect place to meet
eccentric characters—an aging art collector, a histrionic television
actress, a Hollywood film director, an anxious concert pianist and his
manipulative wife—who cross paths with a disarmingly naive and pretty
waitress. French,
with English subtitles.
AFTER THE
WEDDING (Denmark, 2007)
on April 18. When Jacob returns home to Copenhagen
seeking funds for an orphanage back in
India, he finds more than he expects. His
would-be benefactor wants to make a deal that challenges Jacob’s ideals and
unearths family secrets. Suzanne Bier’s emotionally satisfying film, an
Oscar nominee last year, contrasts two cultures and two lifestyles.
Danish, Swedish, Hindi, and English,
with English subtitles.
CIAO,
PROFESSORE! (Italy, 1994) on May 2.
In a hilarious departure
from her earlier work (Seven
Beauties, Swept Away), Lina Wertműller follows a school teacher from the
north of Italy
to a small southern town where the kids challenge his preconceptions and his
wits. In order to teach his class, Signore Sperelli must find them first.
This is a film with bountiful humor, heart, and a social conscience.
Italian, with English subtitles.
THE NAMESAKE
(India,
2007) on May 9. In her latest
film, Mira Nair (Salaam
Bombay!, Mississippi Masala) brings Jhumpa
Lahiri’s best-selling novel of Bengali immigrants to a screen brimming with
life and sensuous color. Young Ashoke makes the voyage from
Calcutta to New York with his new
wife to face the uncertainties of life in a land of economic promise and
cultural tensions. The Chicago Tribune says the film “brims with
intelligence, compassion and sensuous delight.”
Hindi, Bengali, English, and French,
with English subtitles.
RIDING ALONE
FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES (China, 2005) on May 16.
Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red
Lantern, Not One Less, Hero) keeps changing his focus and his style.
Here he tells a simple, yet profoundly moving story about fathers and sons.
As a young filmmaker lies dying in a Japanese hospital, his estranged father
undertakes a journey to western China to
complete a project that his son has left unfinished.
Japanese and Mandarin, with English
subtitles.
THE BEST OF
YOUTH (Italy, 2003) on May 30. By popular
request, the Carati brothers and their personal journey continue through two
more decades of Italy’s
recent history. This two-hour segment of the six-hour series follows Matteo
to Sicily just before the
notorious Mafia trials begin, while Nicola is faced with the prospect that
Julia, the mother of his daughter, may join the Red Brigade.
The Boston Globe called it
“A slowly flowering miracle: an epic of normal life.”
Italian, with English subtitles.
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