(September 14, 2010)
Contact: Rick DelaHaya, Centenary News Services, 318.869.5073
Film Society Kicks Off Season September 14
SHREVEPORT, La. (Centenary News Service) — The Centenary College Film Society will kick off their 28th year of bringing the best in international, independent and classic cinema to the Shreveport community beginning September 14 and running through November 30.
All films will be shown at the Robinson Film Center in downtown Shreveport every Tuesday, with show times beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Admission is free for Centenary College students, faculty and staff with valid identification, and $5 for the general public. Tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis and may be purchased at the Robinson Film Center box office at 617 Texas Street or by purchasing tickets online. For additional information on tickets and show times call the Robinson Film Center at 318.424-9090 or Jefferson Hendricks, Professor of English, at 318.820.1414.
This fall season's emphasis is on recent international cinema, highlighted by a French Film Series that includes Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, Séraphine, and Lourdes; and two critically-acclaimed Mexican films, Rudo y Cursi and My Mexican Shiva.
The 2010 season of the Centenary Film Society is being co-sponsored by the Student Government Association of Centenary College and the Consulate General of France in New Orleans. Founded in 1984, the mission of The Centenary College Film Society is to present the cinematic arts as a significant and meaningful form of artistic expression and a powerful force for cultural diversity and international understanding.
Centenary Film Society Fall Schedule | |
Tuesday, Sept. 14 Robert Hanson is a Copenhagen police officer who, following a nervous breakdown, is transferred to a small provincial town to take on the mysteriously vacated marshall position and subsequently gets mixed up with a married femme fatale. Robert's big city temperament makes it impossible for him to fit in, or understand the uncivilized, bizarre behavior displayed by the townspeople. Quickly spiraling downward into an intense diabollically-comic fable reminiscent of the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men or David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Terribly Happy displays a unique, often macabre vision of the darkest depths to which people will go to achieve a sense of security and belonging. |
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Thursday, Sept. 16 Oscar-winning filmmaker Neil Jordan's Ondine follows Syracuse (Colin Farrell), a lonely Irish fisherman who one day pulls a beautiful woman named Ondine out of the sea in his nets. His young daughter Annie is convinced that she is a "selkie" — a creature from Irish folklore much like a mermaid. Syracuse has his doubts, but as Ondine brings some luck and joy to his otherwise downcast life, he starts to think she might be right. |
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Tuesday, Sept. 21 Seven years after she was inspired by the bold debut of Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," famed fashion designer Coco Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) — reeling from the death of her beau, Boy Capel (Anatole Taubmann) — meets and falls for the Russian composer (Mads Mikkelsen) in 1920s Paris. A forbidden romance ensues in Jan Kounen's sumptuous period drama, the closing film of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. |
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Tuesday, Sept. 28 Director Sally Potter adapts Virginia Woolf's 1928 allegorical novel about a woman who lives for 400 years — the first half as a man — in this surrealist adventure of sex and gender roles throughout the ages. The transition from man to woman and from the 16th to the 20th century is realized by Tilda Swinton's breakthrough performance and the film's Oscar-nominated costumes and art direction. |
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Tuesday, Oct. 5 Based on a true story, North Face is a suspenseful adventure film about a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Alps. Set in 1936, as Nazi propaganda urges the nation's Alpinists to conquer the unclimbed north face of the Swiss massif — the Eiger — two reluctant German climbers begin their daring ascent. |
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Tuesday, Oct. 19 Beto (Diego Luna) and Tato (Gael García Bernal) Verdusco are brothers who work at a banana plantation and also play soccer for the village team. Nicknamed "Tough" because of his personality and football style, Beto dreams of becoming a professional soccer player; Tato's dream is to be a famous singer, and both share the dream of building a house for their mother, Elvira. Their bad luck changes, however, when "Batuta," a soccer talent scout, discovers them accidentally and they end up leaving their small town life and travelling to the Mexico City to seek their fortune. |
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Tuesday, Oct. 26 After a free-spirited Jewish patriarch drops dead during a party, his friends and family come together to sit shivah over him but spend much of their time complaining about his roguish ways. This bawdy Mexican comedy by writer-director Alejandro Springall uses the seven days of shivah to launch a series of hilariously escalating confrontations, including one in which elderly men nearly come to blows over who's the more genuine Jew. Meanwhile, two Yiddish-speaking angels, invisible to all but the moviegoers, dutifully take notes on the proceedings to determine whether Moishe's spirit will follow angels of light or angels of darkness after the shivah. |
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Tuesday, Nov. 2 Séraphine is the true story of Séraphine Louis (aka Séraphine de Senlis), a simple and profoundly devout housekeeper who in 1905 at age 41 — self-taught and with the instigation of her guardian angel — began painting brilliantly colorful canvases. In 1912 Wilhelm Uhde, a German art critic and collector discovered her paintings while she worked for him as a maid in his lodgings. Director Martin Provost builds his story around the relationship between the avant-garde art dealer and the visionary cleaning lady, forging a testament to the mysteries of creativity and the resilience of one woman's spirit. A sleeper hit in France, Séraphine went on to a surprise win of the Best Picture and Best Actress for Yolande Moreau along with five other awards at the 2009 Cesars, the French equivalent of the Academy Awards. |
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Tuesday, Nov. 9 Anders østergaard's award-winning documentary shows a rare inside look into the 2007 uprising in Myanmar through the cameras of the independent journalist group, Democratic Voice of Burma. While 100,000 people (including 1,000s of Buddhist monks) took to the streets to protest the country's repressive regime that has held them hostage for over 40 years, foreign news crews were banned to enter and the internet was shut down. The Democratic Voice of Burma, a collective of 30 anonymous and underground video journalists (VJs) recorded these historic and dramatic events on handycams and smuggled the footage out of the country, where it was broadcast worldwide via satellite. Risking torture and life imprisonment, the VJs vividly document the brutal clashes with the military and undercover police — even after they themselves become targets of the authorities. |
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Tuesday, Nov. 16 Having escaped the clutches of an enemy clan, Princess Yuki (Misa Uehara), her loyal retainers, and her faithful military commandant, General Rokurota Makabe (Toshiro Mifune), are hiding out in a secret mountain fortress. With their clan's precious gold horde hidden in sticks of firewood, they plan to make their escape across a nearby border by disguising themselves as peasants. Once on their way, it's one chase, swordfight, and hairs-breadth escape after another. Acknowledged as a primary influence on George Lucas's Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa's inimitably deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action and humanist compassion on an epic scale. |
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Tuesday, Nov. 30 Christine has been confined to a wheelchair for most of her life. In order to escape her isolation, she makes a journey to Lourdes, the iconic site of pilgrimage in the Pyrenees Mountains. She wakes up one morning seemingly cured by a miracle. The leader of the pilgrimage group, a handsome 40 year-old volunteer from the Order of Malta, begins to take an interest in her. She tries to hold on to this newfound chance for happiness while her cure provokes envy and admiration. |
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About Centenary College of Louisiana
Centenary College is a private, four-year arts and sciences college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Founded in 1825, it is the oldest chartered liberal arts college west of the Mississippi River and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Centenary is one of 16 colleges and universities constituting the Associated Colleges of the South and has been recognized as "One of the Best 373 Colleges" by the Princeton Review and one of "America's Best Colleges" and one of "America's Best Private Colleges" by Forbes.com. In 2008 Centenary College celebrated 100 years in Shreveport and Bossier City.