The Film Festival @ PVCC
2008-2009

Fall Semester Schedule

Wednesday, September 3, 2008, 6:30 PM in the Center for the Performing Arts

Cinema Paradiso (1988, Rated PG) Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
This is the story of a boy who grew up in a Sicilian Village and returns home as a famous director after receiving news about the death of an old friend. Told in a flashback, Salvatore reminiscences about his childhood and his relationship with Alfredo, a projectionist at Cinema Paradiso. Under the fatherly influence of Alfredo, Salvatore fell in love with filmmaking, with the duo spending many hours discussing films, and Alfredo painstakingly teaching Salvatore the skills that became a stepping stone for the young boy into the world of filmmaking. The film brings the audience through the changes in cinema and the dying trade of traditional film making, editing and screening. It also explores a young boy's dream of leaving his little town to enter into the world outside, as well as his first tender experience with love.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 6:30 PM in the Center for the Performing Arts

Amarcord (1973, Rated R) Directed by Federico Fellini
The legendary Federico Fellini takes us back to the small Italian town of his birth and young manhood, and gives us a joyful, bawdy, virtuoso portrait of the people he remembers there. He includes a character undoubtedly meant to be young Federico -- earnest, awkward, yearning with all the poignancy of adolescence to grow towards adulthood. But the movie's not an autobiography of a character. It's the story of the town itself in one cyclical and representative year in its existence.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 6:30 PM in the Center for the Performing Arts

Divorce Italian Style (1961, PG-13) Directed by Pietro Germi
This wickedly funny black comedy is the story of a Sicilian baron played by the incomparable Marcello Mastroianni who feels put upon by his unattractive (she's mustached) nagging wife who craves his constant attention. Since he still considers himself a desirable catch, he schemes to dump his wife in favor of his beautiful and pure teenage cousin. The problem is you can't divorce in Sicily, but there's a loophole in the law that says you can murder your wife and get away with it if you catch her with another man. The madcap events snowball into a hilarious social farce, and Mastroianni’s droll performance earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination, the first for a non-English speaking role.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 6:30 PM in the Center for the Performing Arts

The Conformist (1970, Rated R) Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job working for Mussolini’s fascist government, and is courting a beautiful young woman who will make him even more of a conformist. Marcello is going to Paris on his honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. Look up an old professor who fled Italy when the fascists came into power and assassinate him. Once in Paris, however, he is assailed by doubts. Memories of a childhood incident haunt him, and he doesn't know if he'll be able to pull the trigger while at the same time he becomes obsessed with his former professor’s young wife. The film also features some of the most spectacular cinematography and use of light and shadow ever put on film.

Spring Semester Schedule

Wednesday, January 28, 2009, 6:30 PM in the Center for the Performing Arts

The Lives of Others (2006, Rated R) Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
This winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is set in 1984 in East Germany and Gerd Wiesler is a respected, by-the-book member of the Stasi (East German Secret Police). He is asked by his superior to head up a surveillance mission of a playwright and his actress-girlfriend. They appear to be good socialists and never overtly criticize the government, but are suspected of leading a double life. To complicate matters, a highly placed minister wants the actress for his own - something that would be facilitated if the playwright was out of the picture. Wiesler goes into the mission intending to uncover instances of anti-state duplicity, but the more he listens to what transpires in their apartment, the more involved he becomes in the their day-to-day living.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009, 6:30 PM in the Center for the Performing Arts

Good Bye Lenin (2003, Rated R) Directed by Wolfgang Becker
Set in East Berlin in 1989, in the final days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, there are riots against the government. A loyal communist named Christiane sees her son, Alex, beaten by the police on television, suffers a heart attack and lapses into a coma. During the months she is unconscious, the wall falls, Germany is reunified and the world as she knew it disappears. When she miraculously regains consciousness, the doctors advise, "the slightest shock could kill her." What to do? Alex decides to create a fictional world for her in which communism is still the government, consumer shortages are still the rule, and the state television still sings the praises of the regime.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 6:30 PM in the Center for the Performing Arts

The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979, Rated R) Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
This movie follows the life of a young German woman, married to a soldier in the waning days of World War II. As the war ends and her husband is missing in action, Maria must find ways to survive in the turmoil of post-war Germany. Maria learns quickly that she must do everything and anything to make it out of the ruins of war, not unlike what her native country must also achieve. We see Maria develop from a struggling war widow to a shrewd young woman to an astute businesswoman with a dark side. The film gives a hard yet touching woman’s perspective on a period of German history rarely seen through the eyes of a female.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009, 6:30 PM in the Center for the Performing Arts

Wings of Desire (1987, Rated PG-13) Directed by Wim Wenders
This film centers around the story of two angels wandering in a mixture of post-war and modern Berlin. Invisible to humans, they nevertheless give their help and comfort to all the lonely and depressed souls they meet. Finally, after many centuries, one of the angels becomes unhappy with his immortal state and wishes to become human in order to experience the joys and emotions of everyday life. He meets a circus acrobat and finds in her the fulfillment of all his mortal desires. Yet, like the limitations of non-human immortality faced as an angel, the transformation also illustrates the limitations of being mortal. This is the film that inspired City of Angels with Nicholas Cage.