U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A S S A C H U S E T T S A M H E R S T

Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies

21st annual

massachusetts multicultural film festival

Reality Narratives

wednesday 5 february AT BERKELEY(dir Frederick Wiseman, USA, 2013, 244 min)

Master documentarian Frederick Wiseman focuses on UC Berkeley during a period of economic crisis in his epic study of the life of an institution: its rules, principles, and ideas, and their connection to the lives of people who realize it, manage it, and depend on it. At Berkeley is a love poem to the idea of the university and the ways that universities both foster and compromise dissent.

Introduction by Carolyn Anderson, UMass.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 26 march MY CHILD (Benim Çocuğum)(dir Can Candan, Turkey, 2013, 82 min, Turkish w/English subtitles)

�rough weekly meetings in their Istanbul homes, parents of LGBT children share their struggles, interrogating the meaning of parenthood, family, and activism in contemporary Turkish society. O�cial selection, Montreal Film Festival.with

EIGHT(Sekiz)(dir Tanju Özdemir, Turkey, 2013, 6 min, b/w, no dialogue) A widow’s quotidian life brushes against the in�nite in this spare yet lush short �lm.and

SANSARA (dir Bade Uysaler, Turkey, 2013, 15 min, in Turkish and Kurdish with English subtitles) An allusive portrait of destruction and renewal, �lmed in the wake of Turkey’s campaign of village evacuations as a response to the ‘Kurdish problem.’

Introduction by Emir Benli, UMass. �e directors will be present for Q&A.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 16 april

TO CHRIS MARKER, AN UNSENT LETTER(dir Emiko Omori, USA, 2012, 78 min, in English)

�is collective cinematic love letter to Chris Marker captures the notoriously private director, self-de-scribed as the ‘best known author of unknown works,’ through interviews with his colleagues and admirers, evoking a man whose preference for personal privacy made him cinema’s most famous enigma: a man who is his works.

with

IF I HAD FOUR DROMEDARIES (Si j’avais quatre dromadaires)(dir Chris Marker, France/West Germany, 1966, digital video, b/w, 49 min., French w/ English subtitles)

Composed of photographs shot by Marker himself over the course of his travel in the form of a voiceover conversation, anticipating Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, and revealing Marker’s under-standing of the secret rapport between still and moving image.

Introduction by Kristian Feigelson, Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 30 april

RAISING SHRIMP(dir Joe Cunningham, USA/Belize, 2014, 51 min)

Dive into a vivid, rarely-seen world of rugged �shermen and jungle laboratories, of exotic bacteria and teeming coral reefs, of Asian outsourcing and broken dreams before testing your nerve with some radical solutions for raising shrimp right here at home. New England premiere. Co-sponsored by the UMass Department of Environmental Conservation & the College of Natural Sciences.

Introduction by Daniel Pope, UMass. �e �lm’s star, UMass professor Andy Danylchuk, will be present.

7:30pm, UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 19 february

FREE ANGELA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS (dir Shola Lynch, USA/France, 2012, 112 min)Legendary radical activist Angela Davis speaks for the �rst time about her 1970s imprisonment as a terrorist and conspirator, a �ashpoint in the black liberation struggle that made her a revolutionary icon. Screened in observance of Black History Month. Introduction by Demetria Rougeaux Shabazz, UMass.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 23 april

THE MILL AND THE CROSS (dir Lech Majewski, Poland/Sweden, 2011, 92 min, in English, Polish & Spanish w/English subtitles)

Starring Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling and Michael York, the �lm is inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “�e Procession to Calvary,” focusing on a dozen of the 500 characters depicted in the 1564 painting, set against a backdrop of religious persecution in Flanders.

Introduction by Barbara Bolibok, UMass. �e director will be present.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 5 march

MARYSE CONDÉ, A VOICE OF HER OWN (Maryse Condé, une voix singulière)(dir Jérôme Sesquin, France, 2013, 52 min, French w/English subtitles) Born in Guadeloupe in 1937, Maryse Condé published novels exploring the relationships between African peoples and the Diaspora, and led a distinguished academic career in France and the U.S. Interviews in Paris, New York, French Guiana, and the Caribbean, and archival footage. In observance of International Women’s Week. Introduction by Dawn Fulton, Smith College.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 9 april

ENEMY OF THE REICH: THE NOOR INAYAT KHAN STORY (dir Robert Gardner, USA, 2014, 60 min)

�e extraordinary story of WWII British secret agent, “Spy Princess” Noor Inayat Khan, whose heroism transcended race and religion as she risked her life in the French Resistance; she was later awarded the U.K.’s George Cross and France’s Croix de Guerre. Co-sponsored by the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies, UMass.Introduction by Lara Curtis, UMass. �e director may be present.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 12 march

REGINA(dir Diana Gróo, Hungary/Germany/United Kingdom, 2013, 63 min, b/w, Hungarian w/ English subtitles)Constructed from archival materials based on a single surviving photograph of Regina Jonas (1902-1944), the �rst woman rabbi, this poetic documentary is set in 1930s Berlin when laws of the Jewish religion prevented women from ordination. New England premiere, co-sponsored by Women’s Philanthropy, a Division of the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts. Introduction by Catherine Portuges, UMass. �e director will be present.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 26 februaryTHE NIGHT SHIFT BELONGS TO THE STARS (Il turno di notte lo fanno le stelle)(dir Edoardo Ponti, Italy, 2012, 23 min, Italian w/English subtitles)

On the eve of their respective open-heart surgeries, Matteo and Sonia are linked by a passion for mountaineering and a promise to climb together in the Dolomites. Will their hearts survive the challenge? Written by Neapolitan novelist, poet and screenwriter Erri De Luca. Best narrative short, Tribeca Film Festival.

with:

BEYOND THE GLASS (Di là dal vetro)(dir Andrea Di Bari, Italy, 2011, 18 min, Italian w/English subtitles)

A man confronts his mother’s postmemory of WWII in dreams and conversations deep in the night in his country home: “Taking back a piece of the past, forcing it to be here again—this is the motif of my stories” (screenwriter Erri De Luca).

Introduction by Jim Hicks, UMass. Co-sponsored by Italian Studies/LLC.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 12 february

LOOKING FOR ADVENTURE (dir Kimi Takesue, Peru/USA, 2013, 43 min)�e pleasures, strains, and choreography of group tourism in Peru, structured as formally beautiful tableaux exploring tensions between the commodi�cation of Peruvian culture for foreign consumption and the tourist’s desire for adventure. Premiere, Mar Del Plata International Film Festival.Introduction by Shawn Shimpach, UMass. �e director will be present.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

wednesday 2 april

LADIES TAILOR (Damskiy portnoy)(dir Leonid Gorovets, USSR, 1990, 92 min, in Russian w/English subtitles)

Kiev, on the eve of Babi Yar, 1941: the last 24 hours of a Jewish tailor and his family in an intense drama of the fate of the Jews under Nazi and Soviet tyranny, without onscreen violence. Co-sponsored with the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide & Memory Studies and the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival. Introduction by Olga Gershenson, UMass.

7:30pm UMass Amherst137 Isenberg School of Management

All events are free and open to the public.

2014

21st annual

massachusetts multicultural

film festival

Join us to celebrate 12 weeks of compelling cinema!

Reality Narratives

Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies / University of Massachusetts Amherst

Spring 2014

Presented by the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Catherine Portuges, Curator; Assistant Curators: Daniel Pope and Barry Spence. Brochure layout: Daniel Pope. 129 Herter Annex, University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003, tel. (413) 545-3659.

For updated Festival program information, please consult our website: www.umass.edu/�lm

Festival screenings at UMass Amherst are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, all screenings are held in the Isenberg School of Management Flavin Family Auditori-um (137 SOM) at 7:30pm on Wednesday evenings.

A one-credit colloquium (COMM 296F) is available to undergraduate students. UMass Amherst students may enroll through SPIRE. For information or Five College enrollment, please contact colloquium faculty supervisor Prof. Anne Ciecko, Communication, UMass Amherst, tel. (413) 545-6348, email: ciecko@comm.umass.edu

�e festival is made possible by the generous support of many departments, programs, colleges, and individuals at UMass Amherst, the Five Colleges, and beyond.

We wish to thank:

Major Sponsors:

UMass Amherst: College of Humanities & Fine Arts; College of Social & Behavioral Sciences; UMass Arts Council, Arts in a Series.

With additional support from:

Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival; Institute for Holocaust, Genocide & Memory Studies; Women’s Philanthropy, A Division of the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts; Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures; UMass Department of Environmental Conservation & the College of Natural Sciences.

129 Herter Annex161 Presidents DriveUniversity of MassachusettsAmherst, MA 01003-9312A 105164

�e 21st Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival, “Reality Narratives,” explores the blurred boundaries between documentary and �ction that have been present since the birth of cinema and that constitute a major conceptual force in contemporary �lmmaking. Hosting nine �lmmakers who will be present for discussion, our festival program observes the hybrid, amalgamated spaces between these genres, juxtaposing method-ologies and narratives that blend the “factual” with the “�ctional.” In so doing, the festival raises ethical questions about the “truth claims” and “reality principles” of a wide-ranging, eclectic body of international cinema, recasting conventional de�nitions and distinctions in a variety of works and styles.

All events are free and open to the public.

21st annual

massachusetts multicultural film festival

NON PROFIT ORGU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDAMHERST MAPERMIT NO. 2

Reality Narratives

2014

2014