Don't miss the CineCulture lineup this spring. CineCulture Club promotes cultural awareness through film and post-screening discussions.

See the flyer.

March 9: Angelica (2016)
Discussant: Marisol Gómez-Mouakad (Director)

Angélica dreams of a major career as a fashion designer in New York, but has not got much further than a boring sewing job. After a long absence from Puerto Rico, she returns to the island when her father, Wilfredo, suffers a heart attack. The unexpected return to the house where she grew up, plus her father’s illness, force Angélica to re-evaluate her relationship with her mother, who has always disdained her because of her race, with family members who clearly are racist, and with her partner in New York, who travels to Puerto Rico in an attempt to bring her back. All this forces her to face herself and realize that she does not know who she is, and also, that she does not accept herself. After the death of her father, Angélica must decide whether to return to the comfort of her previous life, dissatisfied but secure, or set on an adventurous path to rediscover herself as an independent woman, modern, strong, mulatto and Puerto Rican, in a globalized world on the cusp of the twenty-first century. In Spanish with English subtitles. 90 minutes. Trailer: https://vimeo.com/150479172

Sponsors: The Department of Chicano & Latin American Studies, the Spanish Program, and the Department of Modern & Classical Languages and Literatures

See Angélica flyer.

March 16: Serenade for Haiti (2016)
Discussant: Christy McGill (Producer)

Filmed over a seven-year period in Haiti, this documentary feature film by director Owsley Brown tells the story of a small classical music school, the Sainte Trinité Music School, in the heart of troubled Port au Prince, Haiti. This modest school thrives in the shadows of decades of political turmoil and natural disasters. Its story transcends poverty and political violence and shows how music can transform the lives of the children and faculty of the school and unlock the power of their own lives and imagination. In Haitian Creole, French, and English with English subtitles. 78 minutes. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaDpXqm56S4

Sponsor: The Africana Studies Program

March 23: Shadow of Drought: Southern California’s Looming Water Crisis (2018)
Discussant: Bill Wisneski (Director)

While California recovers from the worst drought in state history, a myriad of impacts resulting from climate change threaten Southern California’s imported water supply. As a shadow of drought hangs over the region, this documentary explores the dire consequences of inaction that lie ahead. 42 minutes. https://www.droughtfilm.com/#anchor-about-home

Sponsor: The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and Fresnans Against Fracking and Tehipite Chapter of Sierra Club

SPRING BREAK: MARCH 26-30 (Caesar Chavez Holiday March 30)

April 6: Dogs of Democracy (2016)
Discussant: Mary Zournazi (Writer/Director)

Dogs of Democracy is a documentary film about the stray dogs of Athens, Greece, and the people who take care of them. Greek-Australian filmmaker Mary Zournazi explores life on the streets through the eyes of these dogs and their peoples’ experience. Shot on location in Athens, the birthplace of democracy, the film is about how the Greeks have become the ‘stray dogs of Europe’, and how the stray dogs in Athens have become a symbol of hope for the people and for the Greek anti-austerity political movement. This is a universal story about love and loyalty and what we might learn from animals. “A powerful film narrative, the stray dogs of central Athens are transformed from mere symbols of a peculiar freedom to witnesses of a heart-wrenching human crisis.” Yanis Varoufakis, Greek economist, Academic and Politician. 58 minutes. Trailer: https://vimeo.com/239054560

Sponsors: The Classics Program, the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, with support from the Phebe McClatchy Conley Endowment

April 13: Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017)
Discussant: Richard Rhodes (Author of Hedy’s Folly …on which the film is based)

What do the most ravishingly beautiful actress of the 1930s and 40s and the inventor whose concepts were the basis of cell phone and bluetooth technology have in common? They are both Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon whose ravishing visage was the inspiration for Snow White and Cat Woman and a technological trailblazer who perfected a radio system to throw Nazi torpedoes off course during WWII. Weaving interviews and clips with never-before-heard audio tapes of Hedy speaking on the record about her incredible life—from her beginnings as an Austrian Jewish emigre to her scandalous nude scene in the 1933 film Ecstasy to her glittering Hollywood life to her ground-breaking, but completely uncredited inventions to her latter years when she became a recluse, impoverished and almost forgotten—Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story brings to light the story of an unusual and accomplished woman, spurned as too beautiful to be smart, but a role model to this day. 88 minutes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKXAkITImGU

Sponsors: The Jewish Studies Program and the Jewish Studies Association

April 20: The Other Side of Home (2016)
Discussant: Naré Mkrtchyan (Director/Producer)

In 1915, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Turks, during the Armenian Genocide. One hundred years later, also in 2015, a Turkish woman named Maya discovers that her great-grandmother was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. Maya embodies this painful conflict for she bears two enemies in her body: one that suffers and the other that denies. This documentary follows Maya as she decides to go to Armenia to take part in the 100th anniversary of the genocide and to explore her conflicted identity. This film is a universal story of identity, denial, and how the experience of genocide creates a ripple effect for future generations on both sides. In English, Armenian, and Turkish with English subtitles. 40 minutes, Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6r7rhRPHlA

Sponsor: The Armenian Studies Program

April 27: The Suffragists (Las Sufragistas) (2012)
Discussant: Ana Cruz Navarro (Director)

The Suffragists by Mexican filmmaker Ana Cruz Navarro tells the story of Eufrosina Cruz, an indigenous woman from the Zapotec community of Santa María Quiegolani in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. In 2008, her right to vote and run as Municipal President of her community was denied on the grounds that indigenous customary laws prohibit women from participating in electoral processes. In Mexico, women won the right to full suffrage in 1953. Today, after a long battle, Eufrosina Cruz is a representative in Mexico’s federal government, and the first indigenous woman to be a member of the Congress of Oaxaca. The Suffragists details her political struggle, as well as Mexican women’s long fight for political power. The film also considers challenges which women in power face, drawing on interviews with Mexican female politicians and Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first female president and the first Executive Director of UN Women. In Spanish with English subtitles, 78 minutes, Trailer: https://vimeo.com/220101466

Sponsors: The College of Arts and Humanities, the Consulate of Mexico in Fresno, Aeromexico, the Spanish Program, the Department of Modern & Classical Languages & Literatures, and the Department of Chicano & Latin American Studies

May 4: Confirmation forthcoming/to be announced

CineCulture is a film series provided as a service to Fresno State campus students, faculty, and staff, and community. CineCulture is also offered as a 3 unit academic course (MCJ 179) in the Media, Communications and Journalism Department. CineCulture fulfills General Education Integration Area Multicultural International (MI).

Fresno State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact us in advance to your participation.

For further information about CineCulture: http://cineculture.csufresno.edu/

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Contact: Dr. Mary Husain (Instructor & Club Adviser) at mhusain@csufresno.edu