Film Seminars | Discussions | Intros

In a sci-fi-coded world where people have lost the desire to dream, rogue “fantasmers” stoke their imaginations and the film’s ever-morphing protagonist (Jackson Yee) veers through a series of genres, from Méliès-inflected silent fantasy to wartime thriller to con-artist buddy picture to millennial vampire romance — the latter depicted in one of Bi Gan’s customary, and ever astonishing, single takes. A monumental love letter to a century of cinema.

Directed by Peter Weir and written by Nashville native Tom Schulman, DEAD POETS SOCIETY stars Robin Williams as a teacher who inspires students to defy conformity. Featuring Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard, the story draws from Schulman’s experience at Montgomery Bell Academy, shaping the film’s Nashville themes and setting.

Inspired by true events, James Foley (GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS) directs Sean Penn and Christopher Walken as a father-son-duo caught in a violent crime ring. Filmed just outside Nashville, the film blends Southern noir with Brat Pack-era sincerity, featuring Mary Stuart Masterson and Kiefer Sutherland.

A desperate mother takes her daughter to the town of Silent Hill in an attempt to cure her of a mysterious illness. When the pair are separated after a violent car crash, the mother must investigate the strange, liminal purgatory of the town and uncover its terrifying secrets and find her daughter in this adaptation of the hit survival horror video game.

This Belcourt 100 seminar reveals a century of filmmaking shaped by Black Nashvillians, examining the actors, directors, writers, exhibitors and theaters that fostered Black cinema culture during and after Jim Crow segregation — and traces how Nashville’s Black creatives used the moving image to reflect lived experience and shape cultural identity, positioning Music City as an overlooked center of African American cinema. Includes a screening of STORMY WEATHER immediately following at 8:00pm.