Philippe Le Guay, France. 2010 / 104 min.

Introduction by Michèle Bissière, Associate Professor of French, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.

Set in 1962, the film centers on the transformation of third-generation stockbroker Jean-Louis, husband of a brittle, insecure woman from the provinces and father of two boarding-school brats. The self-centered businessman starts to discover his altruistic side after the arrival of the new Spanish maid María, who stirs deep compassion in Jean-Louis, with her stories of working 15 hours a day as a teenager at a tobacco factory back home during Franco’s regime.

Clip: http://youtu.be/yv2FFvanXKM

Introduction by Director Andrea Segre and Daniela Dal Pra, Lecturer of Italian, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.

Set in Chioggia, a traditional small city-island in the Veneto lagoon, this is the story of Chinese girl Shun-Li, the new bartender in the local pub, and the Slavic fisherman Bepi. Their encounter is a poetic escape from solitude, a silent dialogue between cultures and an odyssey into the deep heart of the lagoon.  But their friendship upsets both the Chinese and local communities, who feel threatened by this new voyage.

Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz-pC9mA8Xk

Jean-Loup Felicioli & Alain Gagnol, France. 2010 / 70 min.

Introduction by Jane Houston, Instructor of French, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.

Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol’s exhilarating hand- drawn animated film tells the story of a cat with not nine but two lives. During the day, kitty Dino lives with Zoe, a mute little girl and at night, Dino becomes the accomplice of Nico, a good-hearted burglar. Dino and Nico—the cat and the cat burglar—join forces to save Zoe after she falls in the hands of the gangster who murdered her father.

Clip: http://youtu.be/H7e07c52VWg

Ismaël Ferroukhi, France. 2011 / 99 min.

Introduction by John Cox, Associate Professor of Global, International & Area Studies, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.

A fascinating look at a little-known chapter in the French Resistance during World War II, Ismaël Ferroukhi’s second film highlights the courage of a group of Muslim agents who provided North African Jews with false identification papers and assassinated Vichy informants. Free Men focuses specifically on the political awakening of Younes, an illiterate Algerian immigrant who makes his living selling goods on the black market and in order to avoid prison, he agrees to serve as a spy for the police.

Clip: http://youtu.be/dq1V4vXgiYo

Introduction by Enoch Park, Director of Distance Learning, Pfeiffer University. Discussion will follow screening.

Mija, in her sixties and in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, lives on government welfare and takes care of an elderly man to provide for her demanding grandson. One day, she enrolls in a poetry class at the community cultural center. When she discovers that her grandson has committed a heinous crime, she turns to nature and poetry and overcomes her fading memory to write her first poem, Agnes’s Song.

Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo2dfY317-k
 

Engineer Shurik Timofeev is working on a time machinein his apartment. By accident, he sends Ivan Vasilevich Bunsha, superintendent of his apartment building, and George Miloslavsky, a small-time burglar, back into the time of Ivan the Terrible in sixteenth-century Moscow, while the Tsar is sent to the Soviet Union of 1973 by the same machine.
 

Introduction by Maryrica Lottman, Associate Professor of Spanish, UNC Charlotte. Discussion and Q & A with Ethan Uslan will follow screening.

A silent film with live piano accompaniment by Ethan Uslan (www.uslanmusic.com). English translation of the Spanish intertitles performed by WDAV’s Frank Dominguez (www.concierto.org). Steinway piano generously provided by Piedmont Music (www.piedmontmusiccenter.com)

This haunting film, a landmark of Spanish cinema, tells the story of a peasant family torn apart by famine and chance, but most of all by an antiquated code of honor. Weather calamities drive the villagers to seek survival in the city, where conflicts ferment in a yet more challenging environment. The film exhibits great emotional intensity, an anthropological interest in agrarian life and a visual style influenced by Russian expressionism.
 

Mikhail Kalatozov, Soviet Union. 195 7/ 94 min.
Introduction by Yuliya Baldwin, Instructor of Russian, UNC Charlotte. Discussion hosted byUNC Charlotte Russian Club will follow screening. Special thanks to Mosfilm Administration for permission to show the film.

A film about love and loss during World War II. Veronica and Boris are blissfully in love, until the Nazi invasion tears them apart. Boris is sent to the front lines and is killed while saving the life of a fellow soldier. Meanwhile, Boris’s draft-avoiding cousin steals Veronica by brute force, yet she never gives up on her true love. Palme d'Or prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival.
 

Anne Fontaine, France. 2009 / 105 min.

Introduction by Allison Stedman, Associate Professor of French, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.

Anne Fontaine’s thoughtful exploration of the pre-fame life of the world’s greatest fashion designer focuses on Coco Chanel during the Belle Epoque. The film opens in 1893 with a powerfully grim scene of 10-year-old Coco and her sister unceremoniously dumped at an orphanage and ends around World War I, a few years before the Chanel empire is launched.

Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aTjKdqrxRw

Aki Kaurismäki, Finland, France, Germany. 2011 / 93 min.

Introduction by Christine Haynes, Associate Professor of History, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.

A wonderful celebration of France’s national motto—liberty, equality, fraternity—Le Havre is also something of a paean to World War II Resistance dramas. Le Havre centers on Marcel Marx, a once-famous Parisian writer now making his living shining shoes in the northern port town of the title. Marcel divides his time between drinking with his neighbors at the local bar and caring for his ill wife, Arletty. But he soon serves a much nobler purpose when he comes to the aid of Idrissa, a young illegal immigrant from Gabon.

Clip: http://youtu.be/BpAFPgNyxmc