Film & Media Culture

In an Ottoman province during World War I, a Bedouin boy experiences a greatly hastened coming-of-age as he embarks on a perilous desert journey to guide a British officer to his secret destination. “Theeb exhibits the composure, bravery and cunning of a little savage driven by animal instinct”––Stephen Holden, New York Times. In Arabic with English subtitles. Sponsored by the Hirschfield International Film Series. (Naji Abu Nowar, Jordan, 2015, 100 minutes) Free

(Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 2013, 126 minutes) Academy Award winner Hayao Miyazaki, one of the greatest animators and directors of Japan, draws his final feature with magnificence. It is inspired by the life of second world war Zero fighter plane designer Jiro Horikoshi, encompassing the great Kanto earthquake of 1923. “Miyazaki is at the peak of his visual craftsmanship here”––Scott Foundas,Variety. In Japanese with English subtitles.

(Stephane Brize, France, 2015, 93 minutes) An unemployed factory worker struggles to keep his family afloat and maintain his dignity in this powerful social drama. How much will this ordinary working man compromise his integrity to make ends meet? The lead performance by Vincent Lindon “is a veritable master class in understated humanism”––Scott Foundas, Variety. In French with English subtitles. Sponsored by the Department of French.

The Hirschfield International Film series presents Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence. The Look of Silence is Joshua Oppenheimer’s powerful companion piece to the Oscar nominated The Act of Killing. Through Oppenheimer’s footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. Sponsored by the Hirschfield International Film Series in association with The Vermont International Film Foundation.

(Morten Tyldum, UK, 2014, 114 minutes) This Oscar-winning film tells the true story of how Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) and a team of cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park during World War II struggled to crack the Nazis’ naval code, and thereby help the Allies win the war. “So innately compelling is Turing’s story—to say nothing of Cumberbatch’s masterful performance. It’s hard not to get caught up in this well-told tale and its skillful manipulations”––Scott Foundas, Variety.

The Hirschfield International Film Series presents, The Assassin. Legendary Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien wowed this year’s Cannes Film Festival (where he won Best Director) with his awe-inspiring The Assassin, his first film in eight years. In ninth-century China, an exiled assassin must choose between love or duty when she receives orders to kill a man from her past. In Mandarin with English subtitles. Sponsored by the Hirschfield International Film Series in association with The Vermont International Film Foundation. (Taiwan, 104 minutes, 2015) Free

(Berman/Pulcini, USA, 2015, 113 minutes) Shuttling between bucolic Vermont and the grime of late-’80s New York, this movie treats a teen’s especially ill-timed pregnancy as a potentially happy moment of truth, a juncture at which varied shards of a few broken homes might be assembled into something like a family, if only the right combination can be found. “Smart, sensitive, and accessible to both young and middle-aged viewers”––John DeFore, Sundance Festival Review.

A transgender working girl tears through Tinseltown on Christmas Eve, searching for her pimp boyfriend. This microbudget odyssey through the subcultures of Los Angeles was shot with three smartphones. “A groundbreaking film that leaves you in stitches while quietly breaking your heart”––Peter Travers, Rolling Stone. Sponsored by the Hirschfield International Film Series. (Sean Baker, USA, 2015, 88 minutes) Free

Adapted from Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novel, Sunset Song tells the story of an Aberdeenshire farm girl Chris Guthrie as she searches for her independence, against the odds, just before the First World War. “The most English of directors has done a Scottish classic proud”––Ian Freer, Empire. Sponsored by the Hirschfield International Film Series. (Terence Davies, UK, 2015, 135 minutes) Free

Paris, 1971. Feminist militant Carole falls in love with Delphine, daughter of Limousin farmers. When Delphine’s father has a stroke, she must go back home to help run the family farm, and soon Carole follows. The two stars “have a natural chemistry that’s not only credible but actually infectious”––Boyd van Heoij, Hollywood Reporter. In French with English subtitles. Sponsored by the Department of French. (Catherine Corsini, France, 2015, 105 minutes) Free