OCU University | Beyond Belief | 28th Annual Film Series

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Beyond Belief | 28th Annual Film Series

Sundays, 2 PM, Kerr McGee Auditorium in the Meinders School of Business
NW 27th Street and McKinley Ave, Ƶ, OK 73106
A discussion session follows each film for those who wish to stay
Free Admission, Donations Appreciated
Director: Dr. Harbour Winn

September 27, 2009, Kerr McGee Auditorium, 2 PM

Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven, Germany (2007), 116 Min.

The Edge of Heaven intertwines different sets of German and Turkish characters in a structure that has been compared to Crash, Magnolia, and Babel. The 2007 German film was nominated for the Golden Palm and won Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival. The L.A. Times called it a “story about generational expectations and cultural shifts… raises questions it can't answer, which makes it only more powerful.

October 11, 2009, Kerr McGee Auditorium, 2 PM

Jia Zhang Ke’s Still Life, China (2006), 111 Min.

Still Life tells the story of more than a million people who were displaced in central China in the cause of generating electrical power to meet the needs of the future. Jia's flowing river of a picture washes over some people as they struggle to adjust to life's currents in the present. Still Life offers an empathetic portrait of those left behind by a modernizing society in the wake of the construction of the Three Gorges River Dam.

October 25, 2009, Kerr McGee Auditorium, 2 PM

Maria Novaro’s Danzon, Mexico (1991), 120 Min.

Mexican film legend Maria Rojo stars in the drama as Julia, a single mother employed as a telephone operator. The high point of her week is to relax at the danzon, a weekly dance where dancing partners don’t need to be romantic. When Julia’s regular partner turns up missing, she travels to Veracruz to search for him. Rojo offers a subtle portrait of an everyday woman who faces trouble in order to uncover her strengths.

November 8, 2009, Kerr McGee Auditorium, 2 PM

Nikita Mikhalkov’s 12, Russia(2007), 159 Min.

Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, acclaimed director Mikhalkov’s 2007 film is a dissection of the personal and social quandaries facing modern-day Russia. Inspired by Sidney Lumet's 1957 classic, 12 Angry Men, the film opens with the closing arguments in the trail of a Chechen teenager accused of murdering his adoptive Russian father. Thinking their deliberation will be brief, the jurors instead find themselves embroiled in the complexities of the case and divided by racism and prejudice. As they deliberate, each of the jurors takes center stage to confront, connect and confess.

January 24, 2010, Kerr McGee Auditorium, 2 PM

Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, Sweden (1982), 188 Min.

Through the eyes of 10-year-old Alexander and his younger sister Fanny, the great delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family are revealed, displaying a sprawling, convivial bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-century Sweden.

February 7, 2010, Kerr McGee Auditorium, 2 PM

Quan An Wang’s Tuya’s Marriage, China (2006), 86 Min.

In the grasslands of Mongolia, Tuya—beautiful, hardworking and hardheaded—lives with her children, 100 sheep and husband. After her husband loses his legs in an accident, Tuya works her family's land until she collapses from a back injury and decides their only hope for survival is divorce. Tuya begins the long, comic search for a new beau who can care for both her and her disabled ex.

February 21, 2010, Kerr McGee Auditorium, 2 PM

Majid Majidi’s Song of Sparrows, Iran (2008), 96 Min.

Working at an ostrich farm outside of Tehran, Karim leads a simple and contented life with his family in their small house until one day when one of the ostriches runs away. Thus begins another one of Majidi’s unforgettable parables. When Karim travels to the city to help his elder daughter’s hearing he finds himself mistaken for a motorcycle taxi driver. He then begins his new profession ferrying people and goods through heavy traffic.

March 7, 2010, Kerr McGee Auditorium, 2 PM

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Lorna’s Silence, Belgium (2008), 105 Min.

The destiny of a young woman caught between love and the law of the underworld provides the subject for the 2008 drama. Lorna, a young Albanian woman living in Belgium, has her sights set on opening a snack bar with her boyfriend. To do this she needs Belgian citizenship papers, so she becomes an accomplice in a diabolical plan devised by a mobster.

The topic of a film series at OCU University this fall borrows the theme from the popular and inspirational public radio program-turned book, “This I Believe.” “This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women” is a book based on a National Public Radio series.

Admission to all sessions is free, but donations to the Ƶ Film Institute will be accepted.

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