Screen/Society collaborates with other Duke departments to present a variety of films in the Triangle area. Hank Okazaki, Exhibitions Programmer for the Arts of the Moving Image, describes the mission of Screen/Society as to show interesting, challenging or great works not normally screened in the area, and to have those screenings be free and open to the public. The programs are also intended to promote film literacy and serve the campus community. Many of the films haven’t been shown in the triangle, and those that have, says Okazaki, “have reason to be shown again.”
AMI Student Film Festival
The Program in Arts of the Moving Image (AMI) will present a selection of works produced in a wide variety of AMI courses during the spring 2013 semester. The short films, which amount to a program of close to one hour, were selected by faculty in the department from hours of student films.
The screening includes works by Kristin Bedford (MFA|EDA) '14, Ji Young Chun '14, Vivian Chung '16, Matthew Jones '14, Kristian King '13, Rebecca Lai '16, Natasia Leung '15, Winston Liu '14, Charlie Molthrop '14, Pitram Mathivana '15, Grace Oathout '16, Anthony Polizzi '14, Madeleine Pron '16, John Rash (MFA|EDA) '14, Evan Schwartz '13, Jen Skeritt '14 and Ashley Tsai '13.
The AMI Student Film Festival will show in Griffith on Tuesday, September 3 at 7 p.m.
Middle East Film Series
Screen/Society and the Nasher Museum of Art will screen several Middle Eastern films this fall. The first of these films is Gabbeh (1996), the second Iranian film ever to be widely distributed in the United States. What began as an ethnographic documentary about a tribe of nomads in Iran became much more. Director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, inspired by the gabbeh (carpets) the tribe made, weaves a fictionalized love story into his documentary, creating a tale of magical realism. The series aims to expose western audiences to cinema they likely haven’t had a chance to see before. Further films will be announced shortly.
Gabbeh screens on Thursday, September 5 at 7 p.m. in the Nasher Museum of Art.
Tournees French Film Festival
The Tournees French Film Festival will bring five recent French movies to campus on Monday nights in September and October. The first of the films screened will be “Rust and Bone” (“De rouille et d'os”) (9/9), starring Academy Award-winner Marion Cotillard, and the experimental ode to cinema and genre entitled “Holy Motors!” (9/16). The other films that will be presented are “Polisse” (9/23), “Something in the Air” (“Après mai”) (9/30) and Marie Antoinette-based “Farewell, My Queen” (“Les adieux à la reine”) (10/7). Two additional French films will be shown: “The Minister” (10/21) and “The Rabbi’s Cat” (10/28), the latter of which will be followed by a discussion. The festival, put on by the Center for French and Francophone Studies, Screen/Society, the Department of Romance Studies and the Program in the Study of Sexualities, is funded partially by grants from the French Ministry of Culture and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.
Rights! Camera! Action!
Rights! Camera! Action! Human Rights Film Series is back for another year. Since 2009, the Archives for Human Rights, the Duke Human Rights Center, the Franklin Humanities Institute and the Program in Arts of the Moving Image have joined to present films that were shown at Full Frame Documentary Festival in past years that also offer a human rights focus. The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library’s Full Frame Archive preserves and maintains master copies of winning Full Frame films and makes agreements with filmmakers to have DVD copies available for educational screenings. Rights! Camera! Action! is a product of this initiative. One of the films selected this year, “We Still Live Here,” is about the Wampanoag, the Native American tribe famous for the first Thanksgiving, and the revival of a language with no living speakers. “The Undocumented,” which received an honorable mention at Full Frame this year for the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights, will also be screened.
The Rights! Camera! Action series screens September 19 and October 24, with further dates to be announced, in Smith Warehouse Bay 4 at 7 p.m.
NC Latin American Film Festival
In its 27th year, the North Carolina Latin American Film Festival will again bring films, panels, music and dance to the Triangle. The Consortium of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and Duke organizes the festival every year in association with several other universities in order to present screenings of films related to Latin America or Latin American life in the United States. Screenings at Duke include “Reel Injun,” a film about the way Hollywood portrays Latin America, and “In the Light of Reverence,” which documents the lives of Lakota in three regions of the United States. A film about how a 1982 documentary became forensic to prove genocide in Guatemala, “Granito: How to Nail a Dictator” will also be featured at Duke. In association with the festival, there will be a screening of Oscar-winning documentary short subject “Incocente” about a young girl telling a story through her art. The titular Inocente, who was fifteen years old when the film was made, will come to campus on September 16.
Cine-East: East Asian Cinema
Cine-East is presented annually by the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute and Screen/Society. The ongoing program shows films from the Koreas, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and typically focuses on two of these regions yearly. In past years, filmmakers and panelists have come to campus for the series. It included fourteen films last year but is expected to include fewer this fall. The schedule is yet to be released. Hank Okazaki, Exhibitions Programmer for the Arts of the Moving Image, said that Cine-East provides an opportunity to “expose the local community to Asian cultures.”
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