Events

February 1, 2010

Film Studies

Deepa Mehta trilogy, classics on screen for spring


Deepa Mehta on set of "Water"

The Department of Film Studies and Emory College’s Emory Cinematheque continue its series of international film classics in 35mm on Wednesday nights in White Hall 205 at 7:30 p.m.

Highlights of the spring series include Akira Kurosawa’s 1949 detective film/portrait of postwar Japan “Stray Dog” (Feb. 3); Francois Truffaut’s 1959 breakthrough autobiographical French New Wave movie “The 400 Blows” (Feb. 24);  Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1957 award-winning portrait of World War II, “The Cranes are Flying” (March 3); Hsiao-hsien Hou’s 1989 acclaimed portrait of a family in late 1940s Taiwan “A City of Sadness” (April 14); and summer 2009’s surprise sci-fi hit, “District 9” (April 21).

All screenings are introduced by professor Eddy von Mueller of the Department of Film Studies and are free and open to the public.

In addition, the Department of Film Studies and the Provost’s Office are co-sponsoring 35mm screenings of internationally acclaimed director Deepa Mehta’s “Elements” Trilogy in advance of her visit to Emory and her delivery of the Sheth Lecture in Indian Studies on Sunday, Feb. 28 at 5 p.m. in the Law School’s Tull Auditorium.

The “Elements” trilogy is an exploration of tradition and change in 20th century India. The screenings start with “Fire” (1996), in which two sisters-in-law suffer in unhappy arranged marriages but find solace in each other (Feb. 4). Next is “Earth” (1998), based on Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel “Cracking India,” which portrays, through the eyes of a child, the violent and abrupt undoing of the warm friendships between Hindu, Sikh, Parsee and Muslim friends during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 (Feb. 11). The series concludes with “Water” (2005), a film centered on an 8-year-old widow who by orthodox Hindu custom must spend the rest of her life in an ashram, set next to the Ganges River.

“The trilogy is about elements on one level that nurture and destroy us,” Mehta has said.  “They are very tangible elements. ‘Fire’ is about the politics of sexuality, ‘Earth’ is about the politics of nationalism, and ‘Water’ is about the politics of religion.”

All screenings are at 8 p.m. in White Hall 208 and are free and open to the community.

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