47th Annual Film Festival

9 p.m.
Thursday, Aug. 28
Run Lola Run
(Lola rennt)
(Germany, 1998)

This special showing will take place in an outdoor setting in Residence Halls Courtyard

Directed by Tom Tykwer
A tension-packed suspense film that follows what happens when the title character hears that her boyfriend’s life is threatened if he cannot deliver mislaid drug money. “… (A) fabulously kinetic German movie…it pulsates with its own originality” (Desson Howe, Washington Post).

2:30 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 11
Good Bye, Lenin!
(Germany, 2003)

W. Robert Corley Auditorium (Webster Hall)
Admission: free
Directed by Wolfgang Becker
Before the fall of the Berlin wall, a young dissident’s pro-Communist mother slips into a coma and awakens to a world that has changed beyond recognition. Knowing the shock might kill her, he tries to keep the change a secret. A lively and poignant satire.

7 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 11
The Lives of Others
(Das Leben der Anderen)
(Germany, 2006)

W. Robert Corley Auditorium (Webster Hall)
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
In 1984 East Germany, the Stasi secret police try to create files of every citizen, especially opponents of the ruling party. A Stasi operative, conducting surveillance of a writer and his lover, becomes absorbed by their lives. Winner of the Best Foreign Film Academy Award.

Sept. 23
Metropolis  
(Germany, 1927)

Cornell Auditorium (Plaster Hall) Directed by Fritz Lang
This is a new restoration of one of the most famous of all silent films and all science fiction films. Set in a futuristic city whose populace is segregated between the idle ruling class and the dehumanized workers, it is still unsurpassed in special effects and pictorial composition.

Oct. 7
The Tin Drum
(Die Blechtrommel)
(Germany, 1981)

Cornell Auditorium (Plaster Hall)
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff
This is an epic drama about the rise and fall of Nazi Germany as seen through the eyes of a young boy who ceases growing in order to ignore the horrors around him, venting his rage through a toy drum. Winner of the Best Foreign Film Academy Award.

9:00 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 9
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
(Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) 
(Germany, 1919)

Another outdoor showing in the Courtyard at the MSSU Student Residence Halls
Directed by Robert Wiene
Called the ancestor of horror films, this famous work of German Expressionist cinema is the tale of a hypnotist who uses a somnambulist to murder people. The performances and extraordinary set design make it as powerful today as it was in 1919.

7:00 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 16
East of War
(Jenseits des Krieges)
(Germany, 1996)

Cornell Auditorium (Plaster Hall)
Directed by Ruth Beckermann
During an exhibition about World War II atrocities, former soldiers talk about their experiences with an immediacy and power to move rarely found in historical documents or portrayals. Winner of the Cinema du Reel Special Jury and Library Prize.

Oct. 21
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
(Angst essen Seele auf)
(Germany, 1974)

Cornell Auditorium (Plaster Hall)

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
This moving romance between an aging floor washer and an inarticulate Arab mechanic is a perverse comedy and biting drama of racial prejudice. Awarded the International Critics Prize at Cannes and described by critic Archer Winston as “the surprise of the century.”

Nov. 11
Beyond Silence
(Jenseits der Stille)
(Germany, 1996)

Cornell Auditorium (Plaster Hall) Directed by Carolyn Link
A young girl has to choose between communicating for her deaf-mute parents and a chance to become a musician. Winner for Best Picture honors at the 1997 Tokyo International Film Festival and for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1998 Academy Awards.

Nov. 25
Merry Christmas
(Joyeux Noël)
(Germany, 2005)

Cornell Auditorium (Plaster Hall)
Directed by Christian Carion
Based on a true story, this rich World War I film is about a miraculous Christmas Eve truce where German, French and Scottish troops venture into No Man’s Land to bury their dead and play football. Nominations include the Academy Award, Golden Globe, and NAFTA.

Feb 24
The Mad Adventures of "Rabbi" Jacob
(Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob )
(France, 1973)

Cornell Auditorium (Plaster Hall)
This zany farce, directed by Gerard Oury and starring Louis de Funes, has moments of slapstick that is reminiscent of the very best silentscreen
comedy. A racist, anti-Semitic businessman unwittingly stumbles upon a group of Arab terrorists and, in order to hide from them, he disguises himself as a rabbi and is mistaken for the beloved Rabbi Jacob,
who hasn’t been in France for decades. Nominated for a best Foreign Film Golden Globe. “One of the funniest movies from any country” (Box-office magazine).

March 10
...And Give My Love to the Swallows
(…a pozdravuji vlastovky)
(Czechoslovakia, 1972)

Cornell Auditorium (Plaster Hall)
The acclaimed Czech New Wave filmmaker Jaromil Jires directed this true story of Maruska Kuderikova, a young Moravian girl who became a national hero when she joined the Czech Resistance during World War II
and was arrested and executed during the Nazi occupation. Kuderikova chronicled her experience as a prisoner in her diary but was optimistic for the humanity of her captors and did not by any means hate them. Jires transformed her story into an uplifting tale of sacrifice for the sake of a better life and future. “A powerful and moving work” (International Film Guide).

March 24
Bad Luck
(Zezowate szczescie)
(Poland, 1960)

Cornell Auditorium (Plaster Hall)
Director Andrzej Munk’s acclaimed anti-heroism satire follows a hapless Polish everyman named Jan from 1930 to 1950, through some of the worst atrocities in history without compassion and ready to be used indiscriminately by anyone who offers him any form of reward. We watch him from his childhood to his first love and his unwilling involvement in politics during the Stalinist period, trying and failing to please those
around him and finally deciding the safest place for him to live is prison.

April 7, 2009
Christ Stopped at Eboli
(Cristo si e fermato a Eboli)
(Italy, 1979)

Cornell Auditorium (Plaster Hall)
This award-winning drama, directed by Francesco Rosi, is based on a memoir by the writer, painter and physician Carlo Levi, of his experience in a remote village in southern Italy, to which he was exiled by Mussolini in 1935 for his anti-Fascist political activities. Gian Maria
Volonte portrays Levi, who discovers the ignorance, oppressed state and indifference of the peasant settlers to social issues and to the unjustified
invasion of Ethiopia. Rosi offers an authentic but moving story against a historical backdrop, stunningly photographed in rich detail.