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| The Middletown International Film Festival begins October 1st |
The 11th annual Middletown International Film Festival is a collaboration between Russell Library, Middlesex Community College and Wesleyan University. All films begin at 7pm. This year's line up of films, speakers, dates and places is as follows:
October 1: The Hubbard Room, Russell Library, 123 Broad Street
Loveless (Russia, 2017, directed by Andrey Zvyagintsex, 127 mins.)
Still living under the same roof, a Moscow couple of is in the final stages of a bitter divorce. Under those circumstances, as both have already found new partners, the insults fly in this toxic familial battle zone, always pivoting around the irresolvable and urgent matter of the custody, of their 12-year-old only son. Unheard, unloved, and above all, unwanted, the introverted and unhappy boy feels that he is an intolerable burden, what his parents don't know is that he has heard their argument confirming these facts. As a result, the couple finally realize that their son has been missing for nearly two days, it is already too late.
Still living under the same roof, a Moscow couple of is in the final stages of a bitter divorce. Under those circumstances, as both have already found new partners, the insults fly in this toxic familial battle zone, always pivoting around the irresolvable and urgent matter of the custody, of their 12-year-old only son. Unheard, unloved, and above all, unwanted, the introverted and unhappy boy feels that he is an intolerable burden, what his parents don't know is that he has heard their argument confirming these facts. As a result, the couple finally realize that their son has been missing for nearly two days, it is already too late.
Speaker: Victoria Smolkin, Associate Professor of History, Wesleyan University
October 8: Chapman Hall, 100 Training Hill Road, Middlesex Community College
Capernaum (Lebanon, 2018, directed by Nadine Labaki, 126 mins.)
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Nadine Labaki's CAPERNAUM ("Chaos") tells the story of Zain, a Lebanese boy who sues his parents for the "crime" of giving him life. CAPERNAUM follows Zain, a gutsy streetwise child as he flees his negligent parents, survives through his wits on the streets, takes care of Ethiopian refugee Rahil and her baby son, Yonas, being jailed for a crime, and finally, seeks justice in a courtroom. CAPERNAUM was made with a cast of non-professionals playing characters whose lives closely parallel their own.
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Nadine Labaki's CAPERNAUM ("Chaos") tells the story of Zain, a Lebanese boy who sues his parents for the "crime" of giving him life. CAPERNAUM follows Zain, a gutsy streetwise child as he flees his negligent parents, survives through his wits on the streets, takes care of Ethiopian refugee Rahil and her baby son, Yonas, being jailed for a crime, and finally, seeks justice in a courtroom. CAPERNAUM was made with a cast of non-professionals playing characters whose lives closely parallel their own.
Speaker: Bruce Masters, John E, Andrus Professor of History, Wesleyan University
October 15: Chapman Hall, Middlesex Community College, 100 Training Hill Road
I Am Not a Witch (Zambia, 2017, directed by Rungano Nyoni, 93 mins.)
I Am Not a Witch (Zambia, 2017, directed by Rungano Nyoni, 93 mins.)
Following a banal incident in her local village, 8-year old girl Shula is accused of witchcraft. After a short trial she is found guilty, taken into state custody and exiled to a witch camp. At the camp she takes part in an initiation ceremony where she is shown the rules surrounding her new life as a witch. Like the other residents, Shula is tied to a ribbon which is attached to a coil that perches on a large truck. She is told that should she ever cut the ribbon, she'll be cursed and transformed into a goat.
Speaker: TBA
Speaker: TBA
October 22: Hubbard Room, Russell Library, 123 Broad Street
Roma (Mexico, 2018, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, 135 mins.)
Roma (Mexico, 2018, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, 135 mins.)
Winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a young domestic worker for a family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma in Mexico City. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s.
Speaker: Maria Ospina, Associate Professor of Spanish, Wesleyan University
Speaker: Maria Ospina, Associate Professor of Spanish, Wesleyan University
October 29: Chapman Hall, Middlesex Community College, 100 Training Hill Road
Shoplifters (Japan, 2018, directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, 121 mins.)
After one of their shoplifting sessions, Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the freezing cold. At first reluctant to shelter the girl, Osamu's wife agrees to take care of her after learning of the hardships she faces. Although the family is poor, barely making enough money to survive through petty crime, they seem to live happily together until an unforeseen incident reveals hidden secrets, testing the bonds that unite them.
Shoplifters (Japan, 2018, directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, 121 mins.)
After one of their shoplifting sessions, Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the freezing cold. At first reluctant to shelter the girl, Osamu's wife agrees to take care of her after learning of the hardships she faces. Although the family is poor, barely making enough money to survive through petty crime, they seem to live happily together until an unforeseen incident reveals hidden secrets, testing the bonds that unite them.
November 5, Hubbard Room, Russell Library, 123 Broad Street
Summer 1993 (Spain, 2017, directed by Carla Simon, 97 mins.)
Summer 1993 (Spain, 2017, directed by Carla Simon, 97 mins.)
Frida, a six-year-old little girl, leaves Barcelona and her grandparents for the countryside, after her father and her mother have died from a mysterious illness. Taken in by her uncle and aunt, Frida discovers her new environment, an old farmhouse in the mountains, close to a dense forest. Her new "parents" prove friendly, and have a three-year old daughter who could be Frida’s playmate. For another child less unhappy than uprooted Frida, this would be the most idyllic of stays, a kind of permanent vacation. But Frida is disturbed and if there are undeniably good times at her new "home", there is also the unexpressed pain which makes her both sad and badly behaved.
Speaker: Olga Sendra Ferrer, Associate Professor of French, Wesleyan University
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