Race: The Power of an Illusion
Episode 1- the Power of Illusion
(Documentary
Film Series)
Tue, February
9 at
7:30pm - Free
Everyone
can tell a Nubian from a Norwegian, so why not
divide people into different races? That's the
question explored in "The Difference
Between Us," the first hour of the
series. This episode shows that despite what
we've always believed, the world's peoples
simply don't come bundled into distinct
biological groups. We begin by following a dozen
students, including Black athletes and Asian
string players, who sequence and compare their
own DNA to see who is more genetically similar.
The results surprise the students and the
viewer, when they discover their closest genetic
matches are as likely to be with people from
other "races" as their own.
Republic of Love
Foreign Film Series
Sat, February
13 at
7pm -
$5 sugg. donation
Based on the novel by Carol Shields,
The Republic of Love is
a romantic comedy about the barriers
facing the lucky and the unlucky in love
in the 21st century. Tom is a
charismatic late-night radio talk show
host whose unconventional upbringing has
made him a little too quick to fall in
love and marry. Fay is an academic
whose expectations are impossibly high
as a result of the living perfection
that is her parents' marriage. The
characters connect in a maze of malls,
condos and family homes, underpinning
the idea that 'geography is destiny'
and that
each of us has our own
'republic', where lives intersect.
Downtown Date Night: Take your
ticket stub to Bull Branch after the
film to receive 10% off your meal.
Race: The Power of an Illusion-
Episode 2, the Story We Tell
(Documentary
Film Series)
Tue, February
16 at
7:30pm- Free
"The
Story We Tell" traces the origins of
the racial idea to the European conquest of the
New World and to the American slave system - the
first ever where all the slaves shared similar
physical traits and a common ancestry. Historian
James Horton points out that the enslavement of
Africans was opportunistic, not based on beliefs
about inferiority: "[Our forebears] found
what they considered an endless labor supply.
People who could be readily identified and so
when they ran away they couldn't melt into the
population like Native Americans could. People
who knew how to grow tobacco, people who knew
how to grow rice. They found the ideal, from
their standpoint, the ideal labor source."
Free
Race: The Power of an Illusion
The House We Live In
(Documentary
Film Series)
Tue, February
23 at
7:30pm- Free
If race
doesn't exist biologically, what is it? And why
should it matter? Our final episode, "The
House We Live In," is the first film
about race to focus not on individual attitudes
and behavior but on the ways our institutions
and policies advantage some groups at the
expense of others. Its subject is the
"unmarked" race: white people. We see
how benefits quietly and often invisibly accrue
to white people, not necessarily because of
merit or hard work, but because of the
racialized nature of our laws, courts, customs,
and perhaps most pertinently, housing.
Mine (Documentary
Film Series)
Tue, March 9
at
7:30pm -
$5 sugg. donation
In
response to Hurricane Katrina, thousands
of pets needed to be transported around the
country and adopted even when their displaced
guardians still desperately wanted them.
Meanwhile, many adoptive guardians have forged
strong bonds with their new pets.
When two families love the same pet, conflicts
inevitably arise over who is the rightful
"owner" and what is right for the
animal.
A tragedy of this scale reveals the worst and
brings out the best in humankind and presents an
opportunity for us to bring about meaningful
social change. MINE
is a compelling, character-driven story
that challenges us see the way we treat animals
in our society as a reflection of how we treat
ourselves -- and each other. (partnership with Humane Society).
Riverviews
will show the french language version with
english subtitles.
A huge
box office success in its native France,
writer-director Philippe Lioret has created an
absorbing story that speaks not only of the
social issues of the day, but of the very nature
of the human spirit.
Welcome (Foreign
Film Series)
Sat, March 13
at
8pm -
$5 sugg. donation
Bilal,
a 17-year-old Kurdish refugee, has spent the
last three months of his life traveling across
Europe in an attempt to reunite with his
girlfriend who recently emigrated to England.
But his journey comes to an abrupt end when he
is stopped on the French side of the Channel.
Having decided to swim across, Bilal goes to the
local swimming pool to train. It is here he
meets Simon (Vincent Lindon), a middle-aged
swimming instructor, who is privately reeling in
turmoil as he dreads an imminent divorce from
his wife. Despite their differences, the two men
discover that they have much in common, and a
strong bond emerges between them. Simon decides
to take Bilal under his wing, realizing that he
too must risk everything to reach the other side
of happiness.
MINE
is a compelling, character-driven story
that challenges us see the way we treat animals
in our society as a reflection of how we treat
ourselves -- and each other. (partnership with Humane Society).
Mine (Documentary
Film Series)
Sat, March 13
at
2pm -
$5 sugg. donation
In
response to Hurricane Katrina, thousands
of pets needed to be transported around the
country and adopted even when their displaced
guardians still desperately wanted them.
Meanwhile, many adoptive guardians have forged
strong bonds with their new pets.
When two families love the same pet, conflicts
inevitably arise over who is the rightful
"owner" and what is right for the
animal.
A tragedy of this scale reveals the worst and
brings out the best in humankind and presents an
opportunity for us to bring about meaningful
social change.
Earthdance:
Short Attention Span Environmental
Film Festival
(Documentary
Film Series)
Tue, April 10
at
7:30pm -
$5 sugg. donation
This entertaining collection of environmental
shorts covers a range of artistic styles, each
with something special to offer. Some of the
films tell true stories such as Bee Petting, a
brief glimpse of someone brave enough to caress
this feared insect; Chickens in the City, a
depiction of urban farmers who get good eggs and
sweet pets; The Great Hopkins Rescue, the
re-discovered story of a parachutist who gets
stuck on top of Devil’s Tower; Nature’s
Blueprints, a trip to the edges of architectural
imagination; Tracking the Pacific Fisher, an
inspiring tale of Hoopa Valley native Americans
working to ensure survival of an endangered
forest mammal; and Project Insect, a visual
feast - huge, fantastically detailed paintings
of insects both astonishingly beautiful and
strange.
Some of the films are comedic and playful in
nature as in The Lost People of Mountain
Village, a hilarious mockumentary on conspicuous
over-consumption; Zoltan, the tongue-in-cheek
story of a passionate river tuber; Garpenfargle,
a look at what really happens when the dog is
home alone; and Grocery Store Wars, in which
veggie puppets take on the dark side of food
production using Star Wars characters and
music..
Earthdance: Short Attention Span Environmental
Film Festival (Foreign
Film Series)
Sat, April 13
at
2pm -
$5 sugg. donation
This entertaining collection of environmental
shorts covers a range of artistic styles, each
with something special to offer. Some of the
films tell true stories such as Bee Petting, a
brief glimpse of someone brave enough to caress
this feared insect; Chickens in the City, a
depiction of urban farmers who get good eggs and
sweet pets; The Great Hopkins Rescue, the
re-discovered story of a parachutist who gets
stuck on top of Devil’s Tower; Nature’s
Blueprints, a trip to the edges of architectural
imagination; Tracking the Pacific Fisher, an
inspiring tale of Hoopa Valley native Americans
working to ensure survival of an endangered
forest mammal; and Project Insect, a visual
feast - huge, fantastically detailed paintings
of insects both astonishingly beautiful and
strange.
Some of the films are comedic and playful in
nature as in The Lost People of Mountain
Village, a hilarious mockumentary on conspicuous
over-consumption; Zoltan, the tongue-in-cheek
story of a passionate river tuber; Garpenfargle,
a look at what really happens when the dog is
home alone; and Grocery Store Wars, in which
veggie puppets take on the dark side of food
production using Star Wars characters and
music..
$5 suggested donation to off-set costs
Open Projector Night! (Film
Event)
Tue, May 0 at
7:30pm- Free
Open
Projector Night is a quarterly film screening of
locally produced short films. Filmmakers
of all levels of experience are encouraged to
submit entries for consideration. Local
filmmakers are offered a chance to showcase
their work and network with other filmmakers,
helping to create a forum for them to receive
feedback from their peers and the audience
Where the Water Meets the Sky (Documentary
Film Series)
Sat, May 11
at
8pm -
$5 sugg. donation
Narrated by Morgan Freeman, Where the Water
Meets the Sky is the story of a remarkable group
of women in a remote region of northern Zambia,
who are given a unique opportunity: to learn how
to make a film, as a way to speak out about
their lives and to challenge the local
traditions which have, until now, kept them
silent. Many in the group can’t read or write,
most are desperately poor, and few have been
exposed to film or television. But with the help
of two teachers, this class of 23 women learns
to shoot a film that portrays a subject of their
own choosing. It involves an issue that is
traumatic for them all, and rarely spoken about:
the plight of young women orphaned by AIDS.
Their film recounts the real-life experiences of
Penelop, an 18-year-old orphan, and her struggle
to provide for herself and her siblings in the
wake of her parents’ deaths. What begins as a
workshop about filmmaking, and a quest to tell
Penelop’s story, becomes a journey in
empowerment as the women rise to the challenge
of pressing their community to change.
Breast Cancer Diaries (Documentary
Film Series)
Tue, October
0 at
7:30pm -
$5 sugg. donation
When local
news reporter Ann Murray Paige is diagnosed with
breast cancer at the age of 38, she sets up a
diary camera in her bedroom to chronicle this
powerful journey..