Presented in conjunction with the Belcourt’s Doc Spotlight series, this seminar is for anyone interested in the documentary form. Documentary filmmaker and Vanderbilt cinema and media arts assistant professor Carmine Grimaldi will explore the trajectory of documentary film from the birth of cinema to contemporary trends. He’ll discuss documentary styles and practices and explore multiple ways of looking at documentary films, including some of the titles featured in the Doc Spotlight series. The seminar will challenge viewers to see documentaries in new ways, and send participants home with a list of films for recommended viewing.
Alienated and tired of life in Senegal, two disaffected young lovers steal some money to fund an escape to France, but the local police are on their tail in this stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic from director Djibril Diop Mambéty.
A cross-country killing spree by serial killers (and lovers) Mickey and Mallory becomes an unlikely cause célèbre when the ensuing media frenzy glorifies their ultraviolent exploits in director Oliver Stone’s scathing satire.
Action maestro Sam Peckinpah’s bloody take on the genre follows a recently-released ex-con and his wife (Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw) who go on the run after a heist goes awry.
Cynical young filmmaker Ben is forced to reckon with his own ambitions and his film-obsessed existence in Berkeley when his girlfriend Miko accepts an internship in New York. Exposing a multiplicity of Asian American identities in a fresh and groundbreaking way, Randall Park’s debut comedy embraces the complexity of being human, flaws and all.
Afrofuturist sci-fi, blaxploitation, cosmic free-jazz and radical race politics combine when Sun Ra and his Arkestra lead an intergalactic movement to resettle the Black race on their utopian space colony and offer an “alter-destiny” to those who would join him.
Four young people come together, friends old and new, at a small vacation home on the Baltic Sea. As the parched forests around them begin to ignite, so do their emotions — happiness, lust and love, but also jealousies, resentments and tensions. Meanwhile, the forests burn. Directed by Christian Petzold (TRANSIT, BARBARA)
The story of the deeply gifted and flawed people behind the dark and difficult masterpiece MIDNIGHT COWBOY; New York City in a troubled time of cultural ferment; and the era that made a movie and the movie that made an era. Featuring extensive archival material and compelling new interviews. See also: MIDNIGHT COWBOY (Tue, Jul 18)
The fantastic period tale of a young girl growing up in rural Normandy between the two World Wars delicately weaves together music and fantasy, history and folklore, realist drama and ethereal romance, to craft a timeless story of a young woman’s emancipation. Directed by Pietro Marcello (MARTIN EDEN).