Cinema Updates

Saturday, October 8, 2011

OF GODS AND MEN at the Jesuit Center, 6:30 PM
France / 2010 / (122 min). Arabic and French with Arabic subtitles.

Directed by Xavier Beauvois
Featuring Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale

Under threat by fundamentalist terrorists, a group of Trappist monks stationed with an impoverished Algerian community must decide whether to leave or stay.

Sunday, October 9, 2011 (two films)

DE HELAASHEID DER DINGEN (THE MISFORTUNATES) at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute (NVIC), 6:00 PM
Belgium / 2009 / (108 minutes). Dutch with English subtitles.

Adapted from a novel by Dimitri Verhulst, The Misfortunates is set in a fictive town somewhere in Flanders. Its protagonist, the 13-year-old Gunther, is the youngest member of the Strobbes, a family composed of one devoted mother (“whose heart is bigger than her pension”) and her four sons (one of who is Gunther’s single father). The four men devote their lives to one particular pleasure – drinking – and spend most of their time in the local pub. Gunther seems destined for a similar, useless existence but is clever enough to understand that a different, more constructive life is possible.

‘The Misfortunates’ was selected for the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the Cannes Festival in 2009 and won a lot of prizes in several international film festivals (Winner in the category ‘Best Film’ at Hamptons International Film Festival in New York, Festival du Film Grolandais and the European Film festival of Cinésonne in Paris)

ALLONSANFÀN at the Italian Institute of Culture, 6:00 PM (rerun at 8:00 PM)
Italy / 1973 / (111 min). Italian with English subtitles.

Directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani.
Featuring Marcello Mastroianni, Lea Massari, Mimsy Farmer, Laura Betti, Claudio Cassinelli.

In early 19th-century Fulvio Imbriani, an Italian middle-aged aristocrat-turned-revolutionary, loses his commitment to a secret revolutionary society. The title of the film is the name of a young member of the society playing fatal role in Fulvio's life The title refers to the phonetic spelling of "Alons enfants," the first two words of the French "Marseillaise."

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

LA BUENA NUEVA at the Open Air Theater, at Cairo Opera House, 7:30 PM
Spain / 2008 .

Directed by Helena Taberna
Featuring Unax Ugalde, Bárbara Goenaga, Gorka Aguinagalde.

A young priest arrives in his first assignment to a small parish serving a working-class village in the north of Spain in 1936.