Ohio Wesleyan’s Department of English and the Strand Theatre Present the 2015 Community Film Series March 3-April 29
DELAWARE, Ohio – Movie lovers are invited to enjoy the 2015 Community Film Series on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between March 3 and April 29 at downtown Delaware’s Strand Theatre. The annual series is a collaboration between the historic cinema and Ohio Wesleyan University’s Department of English.
Films will be screened at 9:15 p.m. Tuesdays and again at 7 p.m. Wednesdays at the Strand, 28 E. Winter St. Admission is $5.50. For more information, visit https://www.owu.edu/academics/departments-programs/department-of-english/community-film-series/.
March 3-4: “The Searchers” (Ford, 1956)
“The Searchers” has been called “the essential Western.” It pairs the best known director of the Western, John Ford, with its best known actor, John Wayne. An updating of the American literary genre of the “captivity narrative,” it offers both a mythical film portrait of Native Americans, and a moving rebuttal of the (anti-)hero’s racism. (119 minutes.)
March 17-18: “Touch of Evil” (Welles, 1958)
Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, and Marlene Dietrich star in the last great film noir of the genre’s classic era. “Touch of Evil” showcases the vision of one of the great American auteurs of cinema, Orson Welles. Tawdry and scandalous, this movie shocked respectable 1950’s sensibilities with its depictions of youth delinquency, sexual ambiguity, drug use, and police corruption. (95 minutes.)
March 24-25: “Annie Hall” (Allen, 1977)
One of the most famous romantic comedies ever made. Diane Keaton and Woody Allen portray two classic New York intellectuals whose love affair is hilariously doomed by their urban neuroses. The verbal wit hearkens back to the cleverness of romantic comedies of the 1930s, yet seems timeless today. (93 minutes.)
March 31, April 1: “The Axe” (France, Costa-Gavras, 2005)
From the acclaimed director of “Z” and “Missing” comes this dark comedy based on a Donald Westlake novel about desperation among the long-term unemployed. A laid-off engineer determines that his best shot at landing a job is to eliminate the competition – literally. It was nominated for French Oscars for Best Actor and Best Adaptation. (French with English subtitles, 122 minutes.)
April 7- 8: “A Screaming Man” (Chad, Haroun, 2011)
Winner of the 2012 Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, this drama centers on the tensions between a father and son set against the backdrop of civil war. An aging Olympic swimmer loses his cherished job as a resort hotel pool manager to his son, but is offered a deal with the devil to reclaim his job. Mahnola Dargis of The New York Times calls it a “quiet, tender, finally wrenching story.” (French and Arabic with English subtitles, 92 minutes.)
April 14-15: “Where Do We Go Now?” (Lebanon, France, Labaki, 2011)
A poignant, and powerfully funny, film about peacekeeping in the midst of war. In a remote Lebanese village, Christians and Muslims co-exist more or less peacefully, until the arrival of a television brings word of hostilities all around them. The village women devise increasingly ingenious and hilarious schemes to keep the men alive. This film has won many awards, including the People’s Choice Award at Toronto. (Arabic with English subtitles, 110 minutes.)
April 21-22: “The Missing Picture” (Cambodia, Panh, 2013)
Winner of the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes, this gripping film tells the story of the filmmaker’s family under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Because the filmmaker-narrator has so few photographs to document the atrocities committed by Pol Pot, he supplements documentary footage with clay figures set in dioramas. The result is a film Washington Post critic Michael O’Sullivan calls “as haunting as it is haunted.” (French with English subtitles, 92 minutes.)
April 28-29: “sex, lies, and videotape” (Soderbergh, 1989)
Winner of the Palm d’Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, this film revolutionized the practice of American independent cinema. With its shoestring budget, unknown actors (including Andie MacDowell), and artistic ambition, its exploration of tensions between a sexually repressed woman, her philandering husband, and his videographer friend demonstrated the potential achievement of no-frills, pared down, psychologically astute script-writing for a whole generation of filmmakers. (100 minutes.)
Learn more about Ohio Wesleyan’s Department of English at https://www.owu.edu/academics/departments-programs/department-of-english/ and more about The Strand Theatre at www.thestrandtheatre.net.
Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers 86 undergraduate majors and competes in 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Ohio Wesleyan combines a challenging, internationally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities to connect classroom theory with real-world experience. OWU’s 1,750 students represent 46 U.S. states and territories and 43 countries. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” listed on the latest President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, and included in the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review “best colleges” lists. Learn more at www.owu.edu.