NAU International Film Series
Fall 2012
Dreaming Big
All films will be shown at 7 p.m. in Liberal Arts 120.
Free and open to the public. Free parking in P11.
The films are unrated, viewer discretion is advised.
Contact: Dr. Astrid Klocke
(Astrid.Klocke@nau.edu)
September 5
Departures
(Japan, 2008, Dir. Yojiro Takita)
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 2009
Daigo Kobayashi is a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just
been dissolved and now finds himself without a job. Daigo decides to move back
to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a
classified ad entitled "Departures" thinking it is an advertisement
for a travel agency only to discover that the job is actually for a "Nokanshi"
or "encoffineer," a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies
for burial and entry into the next life. While his wife and others despise the
job, Daigo takes a certain pride in his work and begins to perfect the art of
"Nokanshi," acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death,
between the departed and the family of the departed. The film follows his
profound and sometimes comical journey with death as he uncovers the wonder,
joy and meaning of life and living. 130 minutes
September 19
Cinema Paradiso
(Italy, 1989, Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore) Director's Cut
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1989
In a small Italian town, a young boy is mesmerized by a movie
theater and strikes up a dynamic friendship with its warm-hearted
projectionist. The film takes place in a small Italian town after World War II
and follows the pair’s bittersweet relationship. 123 minutes.
September 26
Amélie
(France, 2001, Dir. Jean-Piere Jeunet)
Amélie is a shy young woman who has a love of life’s small
pleasures. While she takes joy in the slightest things in life she is still
looking for love as well as the course her life should take. Her slightly
dysfunctional family have fostered her tentative interaction with her neighbors
as well as the customers of the Parisian restaurant where she waitresses. When
she successfully tracks down the owner of a box of boyhood treasures that she
found in her house she begins to believe she might have the power to influence
more of the people around her. This fairy-tale style film follows the heroine
until she finds love and her place in life even though everyone around her has
always underestimated her. 121 minutes.
October 3
Beyond Silence
(Germany, 1988, Dir. Caroline Link)
Lara, an eight-year-old girl, has the difficult task of translating
sign language for her deaf-mute parents. As she grows older, she becomes quite
proficient in playing the clarinet and prepares to attend a music conservatory.
However, her parents cannot share her interest, forcing Lara to decide between
her dependent parents and her own ambitions in this German drama. 109 minutes.
October 17
Biutiful
(Mexico, 2010, Dir. Alejandro Ganzalez Inarritu)
Biutiful is a love story between a father and his children. This is
the journey of Uxbal, a conflicted man who struggles to reconcile fatherhood,
love, spirituality, crime, guilt and mortality amidst the dangerous underworld
of modern Barcelona. His livelihood is earned out of bounds, his sacrifices for
his children know no bounds. Like life itself, this is a circular tale that
ends where it begins. As fate encircles him and thresholds are crossed, a dim,
redemptive road brightens, illuminating the inheritances bestowed from father
to child, and the paternal guiding hand that navigates life’s corridors,
whether bright, bad – or biutiful. 147 minutes
October 24
Thirst
(S. Korea, 2009, Dir. Park Chan-wook)
A beloved and devoted priest from a small town volunteers for a
medical experiment which fails and turns him into a vampire. Physical and
psychological changes lead to his affair with the wife of his childhood friend
who is repressed and tired of her mundane life. The one-time priest falls
deeper in despair and depravity. As things turn for the worse, he struggles to
maintain what’s left of his humanity. 133 minutes.
October 31
The Kite Runner
(USA, 2007, Dir. Marc Forster)
After spending years in California, Amir returns to his homeland in
Afghanistan to help his old friend Hassan, whose son is in trouble in this epic
tale of fathers and sons. This powerful tale of friendship and betrayal takes
us from the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy to the atrocities of the
Taliban reign. 122 minutes. In Dari and English with English subtitles.
November 7
The Warrior
(India, 2001, Dir. Asif Kapadia)
Set in feudal India, a vicious warrior and longtime enforcer to a
local lord renounces his role. He is murderously pursued by the lord, who
refuses to accept his departure. After son is murdered, he must embark on a
desperate journey into the Himalayan Mountains to save his life and his soul. 86
minutes.
November 28
The Assault
(Netherlands, 1986, Dir. Fons Rademakers)
Academy Award Winner For Best Foreign Language Film 1986
A sober, sensitive account of a young man's struggle to square
himself with the dramatic events that shaped his past. The film begins in the
small Dutch town of Haarlem during the last stages of German occupation in
1945. Young Anton Steenwijk sees a hated Nazi collaborator murdered in the
streets and, in retaliation, the Nazis destroy his family's home and brutally
murder his parents along with a group of others. Only his youth saves him but
the events of that fateful night continue to haunt and confuse him for the next
four decades. 149 minutes.
December 5
Behind the Sun
(Brazil, 2001, Dir. Walter Salles)
Set in the Brazilian badlands in 1910, this is the story of two
feuding families, fueled by their personal honor and ethics. Tonho, the middle
son of the Breves family is ordered by his father to avenge the death of his
older brother. Tonho is the victim of a feud between two families that has been
going on for generations. If Tonho follows his father’s orders, he knows that
his life will be short, as the family will return the fatal favor. If he
disobeys his father he will disgrace his whole family. The confused young man
begins to question all of the absolutes that he has known all his life. 106
minutes.