Also Like Life: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien
Fall 2015 Chinese Film Festival
November 3-11
Michigan Theater: See schedule for specific times
Free and Open to the Public
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This film series trailer was prepared for the touring retrospective when it screened last fall at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.
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An international retrospective organized by Richard I. Suchenski (Dir. Center for Moving Image Arts, Bard College) in collaboration with the Taipei Cultural Center, the Taiwan Film Institute, and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of China, the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies presents the Also Like Life Film Series, which will feature the following films: Dust in the Wind; A Time to Live and a Time to Die; Flowers of Shanghai; Good Men, Good Women; and Millennium Mambo.
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Professor Markus Nornes comments on the retrospective: Hou Hsiao-hsien is one of the greatest filmmakers working today, and if you haven't seen his work, this is your chance. The Taiwanese government struck brand new prints, which have been circulating around the world to venues like MOMA, BFI, Eastman House, the Academy, and everywhere else. The Michigan Theater just made a test run, and the projectionist told me he was shocked at the quality of these pristine archival prints. It's a rare treat to see these films on the big screen. I hope to see you there!
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Gasland: A Multimedia Presentation on Fracking by Josh Fox
Wednesday, November 11
Rackham Auditorium
5:00 p.m. -- Free and Open to the Public
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Goldring Family Foundation Distinguished Speaker Josh Fox, the creator of Gasland I and II, will feature clips and comments from his documentaries in order to showcase environmental issues and their possible solutions.
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This event is hosted by Program in the Environment (PitE) and co-sponsored by Screen Arts & Cultures, Environmental Law & Policy Program, Department of English Language and Literature, Department of American Culture, and the Institute for the Humanities.
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3rd Thursday Speaker Series Features SAC Doctoral Candidate Feroz Hassan
Thursday, November 12
SAC Conference Room, North Quad
11:30 a.m.
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Feroz Hassan continues this year's series with a presentation of his paper, "Total War, Total History, Total Cinema: Bazin and the Propaganda Film"
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Of all the criticisms of André Bazin’s defense of cinematic realism, one the most damning had been the claim that he did not account for its role in normalizing ideological and political interests. This talk seeks to demonstrate that, on the contrary, he asserted a deep connection between the emergence of the medium and the political pressures of the age. What emerges through close readings of his essays on Stalinist cinema, the newsreel, Italian neo-realism, as well as the original version of the “The myth of total cinema,” is a Bazinian account of cinematic realism’s ideological complicity with its age. It is only against this background of critique that we can start to restore the alternate political role with which Bazin invests his realist aesthetic.
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Lusophone Film Festival
Festival Runs Through Early December
Films Screened at State Theater, Michigan Theater, and UMMA Helmut Stern Auditorium; See Schedule for Specific Times and Locations
Free Admission
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Still from White Out: Black In, directed by Adirley Queiros, Brazil (2014).
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On Thursday, November 12th, at 7:30 pm. at the Michigan Theater, see White Out: Black In with an introduction by Professor Paulina Alberto . The film is an acclaimed documentary combining elements of reality and science fiction that zeroes in on the complex realities of race in Brazil. The film —centering on the working-class suburb of Ceilândia, outside the capital city of Brasília—, portrays a generation of black men that is metaphorically and literally amputated. On March 5, 1986, in a run-down disco on the outskirts of Brasília, a group of cops used a drug raid as an excuse to severely beat everyone present in the dive; all of those beaten were black. The policemen were heard shouting: ‘White out, black in.’ Marquim and Sartana, two victims of the event, remember that terrible day; the former lost a leg and the latter remains paralyzed. Remembrance, however, is not all they want.
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Unfolding like a hushed, chiaroscuro fever dream, Horse Money pushes Costa's astonishing visual style and formal rigor to new heights with its Caravaggesque tableaux composed of high-contrast light and shadow, and others recalling Rembrandt with their velvety textures and ashen, sepia hues. (Andrea Picard, TIFF)
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On Saturday, November 14th at 12:00 p.m. at the State Theater, see Horse Money, directed by Pedro Costa (Portugal/Cape Verde, 2014) with an introduction by Professor Fernando Arenas. In the film, Ventura — the sad-eyed Cape Verdean lead of “Colossal Youth” — is lost in startlingly abstracted and stunningly rendered indeterminacy as revolution takes place in the streets. A product of the failed promises of Portugal's 1974 Carnation Revolution — where the fight for democracy after decades of dictatorship neglected the African immigrant population of his generation — Ventura is increasingly held captive by his madness and the "nervous disease" that causes his constant trembling, the results of a lifetime's worth of back-breaking manual labor and extreme poverty. Recuperating in a mysterious, vaulted infirmary with a network of subterranean passages, Ventura wanders in and out of the various rooms — which, through ambiguous and startling slippages of time and place, lead him to hidden or suppressed areas of his mind.
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The Lusophone Film Festival is sponsored by the Brazil Initiative/Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, LSA, International Institute African Studies Center, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Institute for the Humanities, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Sheldon Cohn Fund/Department of Screen Arts & Cultures, Center for European Studies, and Rackham Graduate School.
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Sacapalooza
Friday, November 13
Studio A, 1440 North Quad
2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
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Power and the Mediterranean Conference
November 13-15
East Conference Room, Rackham Building
Various Speakers and Times
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The Meditopos Conference is a biennial symposium for graduate students and junior faculty working in Mediterranean Studies.
To view the full schedule of conference speakers and titles, click here.
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Keynote address: "The Power of a 'View from Land and Sea' for the Mediterranean World"
Julia Clancy-Smith, University of Arizona
Friday, November 13, 6:00 p.m.
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The third biennial Meditopos conference is presented with generous cosponsorship from the departments of Classics, History of Art and Architecture, Comparative Literature, English, and Screen Arts & Cultures, as well as the program in Modern Greek, the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, the Institute for the Humanities, and the college of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
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Institute for the Humanities Living Room Series Presents
The Lovely and the Wretched
Thursday, November 19
Kerrytown Concert House
8:00 p.m.
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Frank Pahl, photo courtesy of Doug Shimmin
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The Lovely and the Wretched is a seven-piece ensemble consisting of Abby Alwin, Clem Fortuna, Tim Holmes, Frank Pahl, Mary Riccardi, Terri Sarris, and Doug Shimmin. Originally formed to accompany recent Nick Cave performances, the current lineup will perform original music written by Frank Pahl on a combination of symphonic instruments and original instruments built by Frank.
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THIS WEEK'S FEATURED PHOTO
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Artist Daniel González and Assistant Professor Colin Gunckel in the process of installing an exhibition of González's intricate printmaking work at the Ypsilanti District Library, which will remain on display until the end of the month. Among other activities, González visited Gunckel's SAC 441 (Mexican Cinema) class and SAC 381 (Latina/os and the Media) to discuss the transnational travel of the Day of the Dead through media and its relationship to broader issues of media representation, cultural appropriation, and conceptions of authenticity.
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