The films will coincide with the Art Museum’s Free Community Thursday Evenings and provide another way for residents to beat the heat while enjoying provocative and poignant entertainment this summer. Because of the popularity of last year’s series, two showings of each film will occur at 4 and 6 p.m. respectively.
The films are from the Global Film Initiative’s archives. The Global Film Initiative (GFI) is an organization in New York that promotes cross-cultural understanding through the medium of cinema. According to GFI, history repeatedly points to the importance of great storytelling in chronicling and influencing human affairs. Even today, a powerful, authentic narrative can foster trust and respect between disparate cultures and mitigate the social and psychological impact of cultural prejudice. In recent times, no medium has been as effective at communicating the range and diversity of the world’s cultures as the cinematic arts.
The film schedule is as follows:
August 9th: L’ICEBERG, Directed by Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy, (Belgium)
Fiona is the manager of a fast-food restaurant. She lives comfortably with her family in the suburbs. In other words, Fiona is happy. Until the day she accidentally gets locked into a walk-in freezer. She escapes the next morning, half frozen and barely alive, only to realize that her husband and two children didn't even notice she was missing. But when Fiona develops an obsession for everything cold and icy - snow, polar bears, refrigerators, icebergs - she drops everything, climbs into a frozen goods delivery truck and leaves home, for a real iceberg.
August 16th: CINEMA, ASPIRIN, and VULTURES, Directed by Marcelo Gomes, (Brazil)
1942. Johann, a young German opposed to Hitler’s war, travels the dusty roads of northeastern Brazil selling a new wonder drug, Aspirin, to peasants and farmers. Along the way he picks up a hitchhiker, the sharp-tongued Ranulpho, who helps in his efforts. But as Brazil enters the war against Germany and Johann is ordered back home, each man must decide his own fate.
August 23rd: MAX AND MONA, Directed by Teddy Mattera, (South Africa)
Max Bua, 19, from a South African farm community, has his sights set on becoming a doctor and must travel to Johannesburg to begin his studies. With money the villagers collected for his tuition fees, and a wedding gift, he sets off to the city. Arriving too late to register and secure his room at the university, Max must seek out his infamous Uncle Norman. Director Teddy Mattera has constructed a slapstick comedy about a young boy’s coming of age and his wild adventure with a most unlikely partner in crime.
August 30th: STOLEN LIFE, Directed by Sheng Si Jie, (China)
A young girl is taken to live with her aunt and grandmother in Beijing. As an adolescent, Yanni becomes withdrawn and reclusive, believing that she has been abandoned by her parents, and that she has no control over either her life or her fate. The fact that her “family” doesn’t have much hope for her future only compounds her depression. Surprising everyone in her hostile household, Yanni is accepted to college. As she prepares to begin her new life, an encounter with a delivery boy triggers a series of unexpected events. -- www.psmuseum.org
