Film & Media Culture

“Love”
Norway, 2024

In defiance of societal norms, a pragmatic doctor and a compassionate nurse seek intimacy beyond the bounds of conventional relationships.
Written and directed by Dag Johan Haugerud.

Sponsored by the Hirschfield Film Endowment and the Film and Media Culture Department.

We are pleased to present “A Real Pain,” in observance of the April’s Holocaust Memorial Day, or Yom HaShoah. The Oscar winning film follows two American cousins as they travel to Poland to witness the place where their grandmother survived the Holocaust. The film addresses intergenerational trauma and the question of how best to remember tragedy in a serious, yet not too heavy-handed way—mixing humor and recognizable family dynamics with philosophical questions. Rabbi Danielle Stillman will lead a discussion after the movie for those who wish.

Toxic (Saule Bliuvaite, Lithuania, 2024)
 

A screening of the award-winning film North Putnam and Q&A with director Joel Fendelman.

Co sponsorships: WRPR, Film and Media Culture, Education Studies, College Writing Enrichment Funds, and Academic Enrichment

Middlebury alums Dan O’Brien and J. M. Tyree return to the College having earned acclaim in creative writing since they began sharing their work with one another over thirty years ago as undergraduates. They are currently press-mates: Tyree has recently published his novella, The Haunted Screen with Deep Vellum, and O’Brien has published a memoir, From Scarsdale: A Childhood, and a collection of his plays, True Story: A Trilogy, with Dalkey Archive Press, an imprint of Deep Vellum.

Seniors majoring in Film and Media Culture will present on their written senior thesis work.

Whether we like it or not, social media platforms have become key spaces for youth political expression. Yet young people’s engagement with politics on social media looks and feels different from adult conceptions of political expression: it is creative, making inventive use of platform affordances; it is personal, shaped by young people’s experiences and identities; and it is meaningful to young people, as a space to exert their political voice. This talk, based on Dr.

Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof

 Germany, 2024

 Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

Betania
Brazil, 2024
Written and directed by Marcelo Botta
 
This remarkable debut film is set in the north-east of Brazil, in a breathtaking scenery defined by endless sand dunes, and features mostly non-professional actors. The protagonist, Betania, has to move away from her community upon the death of her husband - and this disruption brings up all flavors of conflict, from the intra-familial struggles to the global issues of overtourism and ecological sustainability.

No Other Land, 2024. Written, directed, produced and edited by Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor.
For half a decade, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, films his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israeli occupation, as he builds an unlikely alliance with an Israeli journalist who wants to join his fight.  Together, as part of a Palestinian-Israeli filmmaking collective, they created one of the most intense films of last year.