2020 SCHEDULE Note: All films not in English will be presented in their original language with English subtitles
Tuesday, March 3rd, 7:00pm UNH, Memorial Union Building, Theater 2
Film d’amore e d’anarchia (Love and Anarchy) Lina Wertmüller • 1973 • Italy • 129 min • language: Italian with English subtitles Starring Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Eros Pagni A tragicomedy set in Fascist Italy before the outbreak of World War II, Love and Anarchy tells the story of Tunin (Giancarlo Giannini), a simple farm boy turned anarchist who is sent to a brothel in Rome where, with the help of one of the prostitutes Salomè (Mariangela Melato), they prepare to assassinate Benito Mussolini. When Tunin falls in love with Tripolina (Lina Polito), their entire operation becomes threatened. A film of operatic emotion and subversive comedy, Love and Anarchy is a powerful statement on the terror of fascism and the dishonorable fate of those who challenged it. Love and Anarchy was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and Giannini was awarded Best Actor.
** Introduction by Anna Marra (Italian Studies, UNH)
Wednesday, March 4th, 7:00pm UNH, Memorial Union Building, Theater 1
Iskanderija… Lih? (Alexandria, Why?) Youssef Chahine • 1979 • Egypt • 129 min • language: Egyptian Arabic with English subtitles Starring Ahmed Zaki, Naglaa Fathy, Farid Shawqi, Mahmoud El-Meliguy
Set against the panoramic backdrop of war-torn Egypt, director Youssef Chahine tells a highly personal tale of love and determination. Amid the poverty, death and suffering caused by World War II, 18 year-old Yehia, retreats into a private world of fantasy and longing. Obsessed with Hollywood, he dreams of one day studying filmmaking in America, but after falling in love and discovering the lies of European occupation, Yehia profoundly reevaluates his identity and allegiances. Alexandria… Why? was entered into the 29th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear, Special Jury Prize. The film was also selected as the Egyptian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 52nd Academy Awards.
** Introduction by Jeannie Sowers (Political Science, UNH)
Thursday, March 5th, 3:00pm UNH, Memorial Union Building, Theater 2
La petite vendeuse de soleil (The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun) Djibril Diop Mambéty • 1999 • Senegal • 45 min • language: Wolof with English subtitles Starring Lissa Balera, Dieynaba Laam, Tayerou M’Baye
The second in what Mambéty intended to be a trilogy dedicated to "tales of ordinary people," La petite vendeuse de soleil is a film about a young girl, Sili, who on crutches navigates a city of obstacles, becoming the first girl to sell a daily newspaper in the competitive world of young male newspaper vendors. Along with cruelty, she also experiences moments of happiness and camaraderie, especially through music. The film was shot on the streets of Senegal with little funding, and with the participation of the street children. It was screened as part of the International Forum of New Cinema section of the 49th Berlin Film Festival in 1999. Mambéty's brother, the musician Wasis Diop, composed the soundtrack.
** Introduction by Lara Valentina Pozzobon da Costa (Education and Portuguese, UNH)
Thursday, March 5th, 7:00pm UNH, Hamilton Smith Hall, Room 210
Teorema (Theorem) Pier Paolo Pasolini • 1968 • Italy • 99 min • language: Italian with English subtitles Starring Terence Stamp, Laura Betti, Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti
A mysterious figure known only as "The Visitor" appears in the lives of a typical bourgeois Italian family. The enigmatic stranger soon engages in sexual affairs with all members of the household: the devoutly religious maid, the sensitive son, the sexually repressed mother, the timid daughter and, finally, the tormented father. Then one day the stranger leaves the household, just as suddenly and mysteriously as he came. In the subsequent void of the stranger's absence, each family member is forced to confront what was previously concealed by the trappings of their bourgeois life. Upon its release, the religious right and the Vatican criticized the sexual content in the film. Others considered the film "ambiguous" and "visionary." The film won a special award at the Venice Film Festival from the International Catholic Film Office, only to have it withdrawn later when the Vatican protested.
** Introduction by Kevin Bertolero (English and Cinema Studies, UNH)
Friday, March 6th, 7:00pm The Music Hall, Historic Theater
Blow-Up Michelangelo Antonioni • 1966 • Italy • 112 min • language: English Starring David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle
Fashion photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) casually takes a somewhat voyeuristic shot of a man and a young woman in each other's arms on a park bench. The young woman (Academy Award winner Vanessa Redgrave) follows Thomas home and makes love to him in exchange for the photograph. But Thomas keeps the negative, and when he enlarges it, what had seemed a carnal moment appears to be murder. Thomas returns to the park, and discovers that the man in the photograph is dead. Yet when Thomas enlarges the photo again, he notices a shadow in the bushes that could be barrel of the gun. Is the woman with whom Thomas made love a murderer? Reality seems to change with each Blow-Up.
Saturday, March 7th, 3:00pm The Music Hall, Loft
Roma Alfonso Cuarón • 2018 • Mexico • 135 min • language: Spanish and Mixtec with English subtitles Starring Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta
With his eighth and most personal film, Alfonso Cuarón recreated the early-1970s Mexico City of his childhood, narrating a tumultuous period in the life of a middle-class family through the experiences of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio, in a revelatory screen debut), the indigenous domestic worker who keeps the household running. Charged with the care of four small children abandoned by their father, Cleo tends to the family even as her own life is shaken by personal and political upheavals. Written, directed, shot, and coedited by Cuarón, Roma is a labor of love with few parallels in the history of cinema, deploying monumental black-and-white cinematography, an immersive soundtrack, and a mixture of professional and nonprofessional performances to shape its author’s memories into a world of enveloping texture, and to pay tribute to the woman who nurtured him.
Saturday, March 7th, 7:00pm The Music Hall, Historic Theater
La Dolce Vita Federico Fellini • 1960• Italy • 174 min • language: Italian with English subtitles Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée, Yvonne Furneaux, Magali Noël
An epic film from one of Italy's best-known directors, La dolce vita rocketed Federico Fellini to international mainstream success—ironically, by offering a damning critique of the culture of stardom. A look at the darkness beneath the seductive lifestyles of Rome’s rich and glamorous, the film follows a notorious celebrity journalist (a sublimely cool Marcello Mastroianni) during a hectic week spent on the peripheries of the spotlight. This mordant picture was an incisive commentary on the deepening decadence of contemporary Europe, and it provided a prescient glimpse of just how gossip- and fame-obsessed our society would become. Presented in commemoration of the 100th year of Fellini’s birth.
** Introduction by Amy Boylan (Italian Studies, UNH)
Sunday, March 8th, 1:00pm The Music Hall, Historic Theater
Musidora, La Dixième Muse Patrick Cazals• 2013• France • 93 min • language: French with English subtitles
Musidora (born Jeanne Roques, 23 February 1889) was a French actress, film director and writer. She is best known for her acting in silent films, in particular in her role as Irma Vep in Feuillade's serial Les Vampires (an episode of which will be screened on Monday, March 9). However, while her popularity as an on-screen icon is well-known, her success as a producer and director has been less well-remembered. Patrick Cazals’ documentary film, La Dixième Muse, brings Musidora to life. The film brings together many previously undiscovered images and documents found and selected by Cazals, footage from her films, and interviews with film historians to bring this extraordinary woman of early cinema into our own age.
** Introduction by Nora Draper (Communication, UNH)
Sunday, March 8th, 3:00pm The Music Hall, Historic Theater
Le Plaisir (House of Pleasure) Max Ophüls • 1952 • France • 93 min • language: French with English subtitles Starring Claude Dauphin, Gaby Morlay, Madeleine Renaud, Ginette Leclerc
Roving with his dazzlingly mobile camera around the decadent ballrooms, bucolic countryside retreats, urban bordellos, and painter's studios of late nineteenth-century French life, Max Ophuls brings his astonishing visual dexterity and storytelling bravura to this triptych of tales by Guy de Maupassant about the limits of spiritual and physical pleasure. Featuring a stunning cast of French stars (including Danielle Darrieux, Jean Gabin, and Simone Simon), Le plaisir pinpoints the cruel ironies and happy compromises of life with a charming and sophisticated breeziness. A favorite of Jean Luc Godard, Le Plaisirwas nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction in 1954.
** Introduction by Ileana D. Chirila (French, UNH)
Monday, March 9th, 5:00pm UNH, Memorial Union Building, Theater 2
Essere donne (To Be a Woman) Cecilia Mangini • 1964 • Italy • 28 min • language: Italian with English subtitles
Essere Donne is one of the earliest film enquiries into women’s conditions in Italy, seen from social, economic, and psychological perspectives. Beginning with an analysis of the feminine role models proposed by the cultural industry, the film gives voice to working-class women in a pre-feminist experimental film that shows the unavoidable contribution made by women to politics and social justice. While the film was praised by Italian and international critics alike, the film was censored by the Ministero dello Spettacolo and never released in Italian cinemas.
Monday, March 9th, 7:00pm UNH, Memorial Union Building, Theater 2
REDISCOVERING SILENT FILMS Introduction and live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis
Le voyage dans la lune (An excursion to the Moon) Georges Méliès • 1902 • France • 15 min Starring Georges Méliès, Bleuette Bernon
This iconic early science fiction film, inspired by the work of Jules Verne, among others, narrates the adventures of a group of astronomers who travel to the moon (by being shot out of a cannon) only to encounter a hostile local population. The film’s innovations in special effects and storytelling, and its high production values, contributed to its success among audiences as well as its influence on the development of narrative in cinema.
The Immigrant Charlie Chaplin • 1917 • United States • 24 min• language: English intertitles Starring Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell, Henry Bergman
The Immigrant stars Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character as an immigrant coming to the United States who is accused of theft on the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, and falls in love with a beautiful young woman along the way. The Tramp arrives in the New York expecting the promised land, a symbol of freedom and infinite possibilities, only to find a closed and puritanical society that discriminates against new immigrants using the traditional weapons of oppressors: egotistical wealth, religious and political intolerance, violence in the service of the privileged. In other words, the Tramp, the small Jewish immigrant chased from Europe by the pogroms, finds in the United States a society where Jews, left wing sympathizers, and the poor are automatically filed away as suspicious characters.
Les Vampires: Episode 3, The Red Cypher Louis Feuillade • 1915 • France • 48 min • language: French intertitles with English subtitles Starring Musidora, Édouard Mathé, Marcel Lévesque
The undisputed master of the espionage serial, Louis Feuillade (Fantômas) crafted films with labyrinthine plots and unforgettable characters that influenced multiple generations of filmmakers. Comprised of ten episodes, and clocking in at nearly seven hours in duration, Les Vampires is an unqualified masterpiece. It follows journalist Philippe Guérande (Édouard Mathé) in his efforts to expose a vast criminal organization known as the Vampires. Joined by a comical sidekick, Mazamette (Marcel Lévesque), and often competing against a rival gang lord (Fernand Herrmann), Guérande dethrones a succession of the Vampires' Grand Masters. But most evasive of all is the Vampires' muse, a seductive assassin who performs her job with deadly grace: Irma Vep (Musidora).
Tuesday, March 10th, 7:00pm UNH, Memorial Union Building, Theater 2
Una storia moderna – L’ape regina (The Conjugal Bed) Directed by Marco Ferreri • 1963 • Italy-France• 93 min • language: Italian with English subtitles Starring Ugo Tognazzi, Marina Vlady, Walter Giller
Regina (Marina Vlady), a devoted Catholic girl opposed to premarital sex, marries a wealthy car dealer (Ugo Tognazzi). Extremely reserved during their engagement period, only after the wedding does Regina reveal her strong sexual appetites. The film caused a major controversy for its perceived critique of marriage and the traditional family, and was subjected to major revisions, including the addition of “Una storia moderna” to the title. L’Ape Regina was entered into the 1963 Cannes Film Festival where Marina Vlady won the award for Best Actress.
**Introduction by Nicole Gercke (Italian Studies, UNH)