Events        Resources    About the program 

Events - Film Series | Events - Fall 2004 | Events - Winter 2005

Film Series - Winter Semester 2006
Introduction and discussion after viewing led by faculty hosts
Open only to the Transylvania community.

  • Paradise Lost (1996, Joe Berliner and Bruce Sinofsky)
    February 1, 7 p.m., Haupt Humanities 203
    Host: Peter Fosl
    Shocking Documentary about a possible miscarriage of justice in the conviction of three young men for the murder of three children
  • All Power to the People (1996, Lee Lew Lee)
    February 9, 7 p.m., Haupt Humanities 203
    Host: Melissa Fortner
    This documentary, produced and directed by , provides an oral history of the Black Power and American Indian movements and the campaigns to crush them.
  • Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power (2004, Sandra Dickson, Churchill Roberts, Cindy Hill, Cara Pilson)
    February 16, 7 p.m., Cowgill Center 102
    Hosts: Duke University professor Timothy B. Tyson and Kentucky civil rights activist Anne Braden
    Story of a forgotten civil rights leader who dared advocate armed resistance to violence in the Jim Crow south.
  • A Man for All Seasons (1966, Fred Zinnemann)
    February 22, 7 p.m., Cowgill Center 102
    Host: Peter Fosl
    Story of the resistance, trial and execution of Thomas More after More refused to consent to Henry VIII's break with the Roman Catholic Church.
  • Weapons of Mass Destruction (2005, Danny Schlechter)
    March 2, 7 p.m., Haupt Humanities 203
    Host: Lee Fortner
    Critical examination of the U.S. media's coverage of the Iraq War.
  • Weapons of the Spirit (1989, Pierre Sauvage)
    March 8, 7 p.m., Haupt Humanities 203
    Host: Peter Fosl
    Documentary about a French village and its pacifist inhabitants who defied the Nazis and Vichy by hiding Jews during WWII; the inspiration for Albert Camus's The Plague.
  • The Dirty War (2005, Daniel Percival)
    March 24, 7 p.m., Cowgill Center 102
    Host: James Wagner
    Imaginative cautionary tale about the detonation of a dirty bomb in London, England.
  • Rashomon (1950, Akira Kurosawa)
    March 30, 7 p.m., Cowgill Center 102
    Host: Mark Jackson
    A rape and murder are told from various points of view, raising questions about the nature of truth and ethical judgment.
  • Southern Comfort (2001, Kate Davis)
    April 5, 7 p.m., Cowgill Center 102
    Host: Barbara Lomonaco
    Touching documentary about a transsexual and his community living in rural Georgia.
view poster

Film Series - Fall Semester 2005
Introduction and discussion after viewing led by faculty hosts
All film screenings in Cowgill Center 102. Open only to the Transylvania community.

  • 9/11 (2001)
    September 23, 7 p.m.
    Documentary of heroic firefighters caught in the maelstrom; contains the only footage from inside the twin towers as they fell.
  • City of God (2002)
    September 29, 7 p.m.
    Portrait of children's lives in a Brazilian favela or ghetto; so powerful that it altered national policy.
  • Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
    October 7, 7 p.m.
    A motorcycle tour of South America transforms a young physician into one of the world's most important revolutionaries.
  • The Corporation (2003)
    October 13, 7 p.m.
    Scrutinizes the character and conduct of this important economic institution.
  • Kinsey (2004)
    October 21, 7 p.m.
    Portrait of this important researcher on human sexuality and advocate of sexual liberation, starring Liam Niessen
  • Salt of the Earth (1954)
    October 26, 7 p.m.
    Harrowing story of zinc miners on strike in New Mexico; produced written and directed by filmmakers blacklisted during the McCarthy era.
  • Four Little Girls (1997)
    November 2, 7 p.m.
    Story of four children killed when the 16th Street Baptist Church in "Bombingham" (Birmingham) Alabama was dynamited for its support of the civil rights.
  • American History X (1998)
    November 11, 7 p.m.
    Based on a true story, Edward Norton stars as a former white supremacist struggling to come to terms with his past.
  • The Believer (2001)
    Nevermore 17, 7 p.m.
    Gripping exploration of the mind of a young Jew who becomes a neo-Nazi.
  • Weather Underground (2002)
    December 1, 7 p.m.
    Story of the radical movement of the 1960s-1980s that attempted to "bring the war home" and foment revolution in the US
  • Regret to Inform (1998)
    December 8, 7 p.m.
    American and Vietnamese women reflect on their experience of what the Vietnamese call "The American War."

view poster


Film Series - Winter Semester 2005
Introduction and discussion after viewing led by faculty hosts
All film screenings in Cowgill Center 102. Open only to the Transylvania community.

  • Before Stonewall (1985)
    February 15, 7 p.m.
    Host: professor Lisa Haefele. Presented in celebration of Valentine’s Day.

    Greta Schiller’s fascinating chronicle of the history of gay and lesbian life in the US for the generations preceding the gay and lesbian rights movements ignited by the Stonewall riots of 1969.

  • Killing Zone (1999) and Gaza Strip (2002)
    February 24, 7 p.m.
    Host: The students of Philosophy 3024, “Pacifism, Nonviolence, and Just War Theory.”

    Two short gripping films about the Israeli occupation of Palestine and nonviolent resistance to it through the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

  • Die verlorene Ehre der Katherina Blum [The Lost Honor of Katherina Blum] (1975)
    March 9, 4 p.m.
    Host: Professor Rick Weber

    Raising questions about media hysteria, police power, and the real demands of security, Academy Award winning director Volker Schlönforff tells the tale of a young woman who is arrested for terrorism after a one-night stand with an enigmatic stranger. Based on the 1974 novel by Heinrich Böll.

  • Lost Boys of the Sudan (2003)
    March 23, 7 p.m.
    Host: by Professor Kathleen Jagger

    What’s it like for young survivors of the slaughter in the Sudan to find themselves suddenly in the United States confronting a deeply alien culture? This fascinating film by Jon Shenk and Megan Mylan celebrates human grit and explores issues of American identity.

  • Brothers and Others (2002) and Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties (2004)
    April 7, 7 p.m.
    Host: Professor Peter S. Fosl

    In the wake of September 11, the fresh need for security has bumped up against the requirements of justice and the protections of liberty, especially those defined by the US Constitution with regard to privacy, cruelty, assembly, due process, and equality before the law. These two short films explore with a critical eye the US government’s domestic response to 9-11.


Film Series - Fall Semester 2004
Introduction and discussion after viewing led by faculty hosts

  • Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
    Thursday, October 7, 8 p.m.
    Host: Anthony Vital, professor of English

    Perhaps the funniest movie of all time, Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 cutting send-up of the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, American military-political culture, and fluoridation rings as true today as ever. With Peter Sellers (as three characters), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens, and James Earl Jones.

  • The Trial of Henry Kissinger
    Wednesday, October 13, 4 p.m.
    Host: LSJ guest lecturer Christopher Hitchens, political commentator, author, and columnist for The Nation

    Based on Hitchens’ controversial book of the same name, this 2002 Eugene Jarecki film makes a case for the stunning conclusion that American political icon Henry Kissinger is a war criminal. Like the book, the film raises important questions about justice, law, the legal standing of government leaders, and the conduct of war.

    Christopher Hitchens lecture October 14.

  • Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism
    Wednesday, October 20, 4 p.m.

    Host: Melissa Fortner, assistant professor of psychology
    Deploying a legion of provocative film clips and interviews, this 2004 Robert Greenwald film argues that what calls itself “fair and balanced” (that is, Fox News) may in fact not be.

  • Osama
    Thursday, November 4, 8 p.m.
    Host: Mark Krause, assistant professor of drama

    Winner of the 2004 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film and shot in Afghanistan, Sadiq Barmak’s beautiful and disturbing film explores the oppression of women under Taliban rule through the experiences of a young girl trying to help what’s left of her family by posing as a boy.

  • Battle of Algiers (La Battaglia di Algeri)
    Wednesday, November 17, 4 p.m.
    Host: Mark Jackson, assistant professor of psychology

    Banned in France, Gillo Pontecorvo’s gritty 1965 film recounts the 1954-57 Algerian resistance to French colonial rule and the French attempt to smash it. US government officials recently studied the film for lessons relevant to Iraq.

  • Train of Life (Train de vie)
    Thursday, December 2, 8 p.m.
    Host: Eva Cshuai, associate professor of chemistry

    Winner of 10 international best picture awards, Radu Mihaileanu’s 1998 film presents a poignant but humorous story of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust. Shlomo, a local comic, launches a plan to save his shtetl (Jewish village) by loading its people onto a fake deportation train driven and guarded by villagers posing as Nazi soldiers.

All film screenings in Cowgill Center 102. Open only to the Transylvania community.