CineCulture promotes cultural awareness through film and post-screening discussions. Film screenings are Fridays 5:30 p.m. in the Peters Education Center Auditorium (West of Save Mart Center in the Student Recreation Center building), unless otherwise stated.

All films screened on campus are free and open to the public. Parking is not enforced after 4 p.m. on Fridays.

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 more information, visit cineculture.csufresno.edu or contact Dr. Mary Husain (Instructor & Club Adviser) at mhusain@csufresno.edu.

September 8: Filmworks: Pop Aye (2017)
Fresno Filmworks are at Tower Theater, 815 E. Olive Ave.

Pop Aye by filmmaker Singapore-born Kirsten Tan is a road film about a disenchanted architect named Thana who bumps into his long-lost elephant, Pop Aye, on the streets of Bangkok, Thailand. After buying the elephant, Thana decides to travel back to the farm where the two grew up together, hoping to make sense of his career and marital troubles. Traveling across Thailand, Thana and Pop Aye deal with countless mishaps and meet colorful characters along their life-changing journey. In Thai with English subtitles, 102 minutes. fresnofilmworks.org/film/pop-aye

September 15: The Fencer (2015)
Discussant: Dr. Michelle Denbeste

Directed by Finnish filmmaker Klaus Härö (Letters to Father Jacob, Mother of Mine), The Fencer is a movie with a bit of everything: a thriller, love story and inspirational teacher tale based on a true Cold War episode, about an Estonian fencing champion on the run from the Soviet secret police. This film manages to find optimism, humanity and beauty in a tragic historical era. The narrative is inspired by the story of Estonia’s legendary fencing master, Endel Nelis, who founded a dynasty and nurtured several world-class swordsmen. Working under a pseudonym as a physical education teacher in a tiny Estonian village, Nelis instructs his pupils in the art and sport of fencing. When the kids push for their team to participate in the national competition in Leningrad, Nelis must choose between his safety and his true vocation. “Unfolding under a cloud of suspicion and paranoia fostered by the postwar Soviet occupation, this well-acted, smoothly crafted drama tells a story of cross-generational bonding in the face of historical oppression.” Justin Chang, Variety. Academy Awards shortlisted in 2016 for Best Foreign Language Film. In Estonian, Russian and Armenian with English subtitles, 99 minutes. thefencermovie.com

September 22: Paper Lanterns (2016)
Discussant: Chad Cannon (Composer)

In the summer of 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan: the first on Hiroshima on August 6, and the second on Nagasaki three days later. An estimated 140,000 civilians were killed in Hiroshima that day, including twelve American POWs whose family were never told of their death. A young Japanese boy, Shigeaki Mori, witnessed the explosion and survived but his life was changed forever. Paper Lanterns, by director Barry Frechette, is a film about the true story of these twelve American POWs and Mori’s struggle to account for their story in the years and decades that followed the end of World War II. Not as enemies, but as human beings who suffered in one of history’s most tragic events. This film is about them, the horrors they witnessed, their families’ struggle to find the truth, and one man’s effort to give them the gift of closure and have each of these twelve airmen recognized as victims of the atomic blast at the Hiroshima Peace Museum. The witnesses and survivors of these horrific events are dying. They do not want anyone to forget their loved ones and the sacrifices they made. They strive for peace, for compassion and for a world free of nuclear weapons. They want us to never forget their story. This film is being screened in honor of International Day of World Peace (September 22). 60 minutes. youtube.com/watch?v=96yMquZrL0E

Co-Sponsors: Center for Creativity and the Arts, The Ethics Center, Peace and Conflict Studies & Peace Fresno

September 29: The Promise (2016)
Discussant: Carla Garapedian (Associate Producer)
Film Screening will begin at 5 p.m.

In 1914, while the Great War looms, the mighty Ottoman Empire is crumbling. Constantinople, the once vibrant, multicultural capital on the shores of the Bosporus, is about to be consumed by chaos. Michael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac) arrives in the cosmopolitan hub as a medical student determined to bring modern medicine back to Siroun, his ancestral village in Southern Turkey where Turkish Muslims and Armenian Christians have lived side by side for centuries. Photojournalist Chris Myers (Christian Bale) has come here only partly to cover geo-politics. He is mesmerized by his love for Ana (Charlotte le Bon), an Armenian artist he has accompanied from Paris after the sudden death of her father. Then Michael meets Ana, their shared Armenian heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between the two men. As the Turks form an alliance with Germany and the Empire turns violently against its own ethnic minorities, their conflicting passions must be deferred while they join forces to survive even as events threaten to overwhelm them. Promises are made and promises are broken. The one promise that must be kept is to live on and tell the story. Rated PG-13, 133 minutes. thepromise.movie

Co-Sponsor: Armenian Studies Program

October 6: Bitter Harvest (2017)
Discussant: George Mendeluk (Director & Producer)

The romantic-drama Bitter Harvest, by German-Canadian director of Ukrainian descent George Mendeluk, is set in Soviet Ukraine in the early 1930s. Based on true historical events, the film conveys the untold story of the “Holodomor”, the genocidal famine engineered by Joseph Stalin. It is a tale of love, honor, rebellion and survival at a time when farmers in Ukraine were forced to adjust to the horrifying social engineering by the Soviet Union. The film has been nominated for a prestigious Political Film Society Award in all four categories for Democracy, Exposé, Human Rights, and Peace. Rated R, 103 minutes. bitterharvestfilm.com

Co-Sponsors: Department of History, College of Social Sciences and Ukrainian National Women’s League of America

October 13: Filmworks: Lucky (2017)
Fresno Filmworks at Tower Theater, 815 E. Olive Ave.

Lucky follows the spiritual journey of a 90-year-old atheist and the quirky characters that inhabit his off the map desert town. Having out lived and out smoked all of his contemporaries, the fiercely independent Lucky finds himself at the precipice of life, thrust into a journey of self-exploration, leading towards that which is so often unattainable: enlightenment. Acclaimed character actor John Carroll Lynch's directorial debut, Lucky, is at once a love letter to the life and career of Harry Dean Stanton as well as a meditation on mortality, loneliness, spirituality, and human connection. 88 minutes. luckythefilm.com

October 20: Frame by Frame (2015)
Discussant: Farzana Wahidy (Photographer featured in the film)

After decades of war and an oppressive Taliban regime, four Afghan photojournalists face the realities of building a free press in a country left to stand on its own. Under Taliban rule it was a crime to take a photo. After the Taliban fell from power in 2001, a fledgling free press emerges and a photography revolution is born. Now, as foreign troops and media withdraw, Afghanistan is left to stand on its own, and so are its journalists. Set in modern Afghanistan bursting with color and character, Frame by Frame follows four Afghan photojournalists as they navigate an emerging and dangerous media landscape – reframing Afghanistan for the world and for themselves. Through cinema vérité, intimate interviews, powerful photojournalism, and never-before-seen archival footage shot in secret during the Taliban regime, the film connects audiences with four photojournalists in the pursuit of the truth. In Dari & English with English subtitles, 85 minutes. framebyframethefilm.com

Co-Sponsors: Department of Art & Design, Center for Creativity and the Arts, Asian Pacific Islander Programs and Services at Fresno State Cross Cultural and Gender Center and Department of Communication

October 27: Nowhere to Hide (2016)
Discussant: Zaradasht Ahmed (Director & Writer)

Nowhere to Hide is an immersive and uncompromising first-hand reflection of the resilience and fortitude of a male nurse working and raising his children in Jalawla, Iraq, an increasingly dangerous and inaccessible part of the world. While US troops withdraw from Iraq in 2011, director Zaradasht Ahmed gives Nori Sharif a camera and teaches him how to use it, asking him to capture the reality of life in his community and the hospital where he works. For the next five years, Nori films life around him, but the population— including the majority of the hospital staff—flees when the Iraqi army pulls out of his city in 2013 because of intensifying militant activity. Sharif is one of the few who remain. When the Sunni militias and the Islamic State advance on Jalawla in 2014 and finally take over the city, Sharif continues to film. However, he now faces a crucial dilemma: should he stay and dedicate himself to treating those he vowed to help, or should he leave to protect his family and become one of thousands of internally displaced people in Iraq?

Winner of the 2017 Nestor Almendros award for courage in filmmaking and 2016 IDFA Winner for Best Feature-Length Documentary. In Arabic with English subtitles, 86 minutes. Trailer: youtube.com/watch?v=96yMquZrL0E

Co-Sponsors: Center for Creativity and the Arts & Peace Fresno

November 3: Menashe (2017)
Discussant: Joshua Weinstein (Director)

Deep in the heart of New York’s ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community, Menashe, a kind, hapless grocery store clerk, struggles to make ends meet and responsibly parent his young son, Rieven, following his wife Leah’s death. Tradition prohibits Menashe from raising his son alone, so Rieven’s strict uncle adopts him, leaving Menashe heartbroken. Meanwhile, though Menashe seems to bungle every challenge in his path, his rabbi grants him one special week with Rieven before Leah’s memorial. It is his chance to prove himself a suitable man of faith and a responsible father, and restore respect among his doubters. In Yiddish and English with English subtitles, 82 minutes. a24films.com/films/menashe

Co-Sponsor: Jewish Studies Program and the Jewish Studies Association

November 10-12: (10-10 Veteran’s Day) Filmworks/Festival
Fresno Filmworks at Tower Theater, 815 E. Olive Ave.

November 17: Footnotes (Sur quel pied danser…) 2016
Discussants: Paul Calori & Kostia Testut (Co-Directors/Writers)

Inspired by the films of French filmmaker and lyricist Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and American film director and choreographer Stanley Donen (Singing in the Rain), Footnotes, by French directors Paul Calori and Kostia Testut, is a whimsical musical comedy. The film tells the story of Julie a young woman who might land a steady job in a luxury shoe factory. The film’s original French title is Sur quel pied danser... meaning literally "On which foot should I dance?” or in other words: “What should I do? Which side should I be on?” Indeed the shoe factory could close and its jobs sent overseas. So Julie has to decide between her livelihood and her life. Will she stand with her striking coworkers or follow her boss? What is more important: a permanent job or her future? No spoiler alert here: you will have to come and see Footnotes with its fun choreography and inspiring songs.

Co-Sponsors: The French Program and the Department of Modern & Classical Languages & Literatures

December 1: Evolution of Organic (2016)
Discussant: Mark Kitchell (Director)

Directed by Mark Kitchell’s (Berkeley in the Sixties, A Fierce Green Fire), Evolution of Organic is the story of organic agriculture, told by those who built the organic movement in California. A motley crew of back-to-the-landers, spiritual seekers and farmers’ sons and daughters reject chemical farming and set out to explore organic alternatives. It is a heartfelt journey of change: from a small band of rebels to a cultural transformation in the way we grow and eat food. By now organic has gone mainstream, split between an industry oriented toward bringing organic to all people and a movement that has realized a vision of sustainable agriculture. It is the most popular and successful outgrowth of the environmental impulse of the last fifty years. Evolution of Organic is not just history, but also a look into an exciting and critical future. Several local organic Central Valley farmers are featured in the film, including our own Tom Willey and David “Mas” Masomoto. 77 minutes. evolutionoforganic.com