August 28, 2007

Forum to highlight international films

The forums will take place Sept. 5, Oct. 17 and Nov. 7 and will feature three films, one each from Japan, Italy and China, said Silvia Oliveira, an assistant professor of Portuguese and Spanish. All the films, which are free and open to the public, have English subtitles, and Purdue professors will introduce the films and lead a discussion after them.

All three events will take place at 5 p.m. at the West Lafayette Public Library, 208 W. Columbia St. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be provided, and people can enter their names in a drawing for a DVD.

The movies and speakers are:

* Sept. 5 - Kazumi Hatasa, a professor of Japanese, will present "Face of Jizo" (Chichi to Kuraseba, 2004). The film, directed by Kazuo Kuroki, is about a young librarian who struggles with survivor's guilt three years after the atomic blast destroyed Hiroshima.

* Oct. 17 - Elena Coda, an assistant professor of Italian, will present "Excellent Cadavers" (In Un Altro Paese, 2005). This documentary, directed by Marco Turco, tells the story of the big mafia trial that resulted in the 1992 assassinations of the first Sicilian prosecutors to take on the mafia and win. The film explores the current relationship between the mafia and Italian politics.

* Nov. 7 - Weijie Song, an assistant professor of Chinese, will present "To Live" (Huozhe, 1994). This film, by award-winning director Zhang Yimou, covers the experiences of a small family that loses its wealth in the 1940s to the 1970s.

The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures is housed in the College of Liberal Arts.

The Italian film is part of October's Experience Liberal Arts, which will feature a variety of lectures, films, performances, events and exhibits that reflect the college's ongoing coursework and research in the arts, humanities, social and behavioral sciences. Information about upcoming events is available online at http://www.cla.purdue.edu/experience or by calling (765) 494-7884 to request a program guide.

Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, (765) 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu

Source: Silvia Oliveira, (765) 494-3828, soliveir@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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