New York, N.Y. – Marymount Manhattan College has been selected as a recipient of the Tournées Festival grant for the 2011-2012 academic year, which will support a film festival held on the Marymount Manhattan campus in New York City throughout the month of November. The Tournées Festival is a program of French American Cultural Exchange (FACE) and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, which partner with more than 350 American universities and colleges to bring contemporary French cinema to campuses across the nation.
Marymount Manhattan professors Giovanna Chesler, MJ Robinson, Julie Huntington, Magda Maczynska and Cecilia Feilla selected five films based on their diverse subject matter, their international themes and their intersections with interdisciplinary coursework offered at the 2,000-student liberal arts college. Marymount Manhattan will feature the following films in screenings and post-screening discussions:
Potiche by Francois Ozon
Thursday, November 3, 6 p.m.
This campy feminist tale has humor, color and the potential for broad appeal. Francois Ozon is a specialist in cross-genre work and his contemporary, queer aesthetics honor classic film. A post-screening discussion will be led by Giovanna Chesler, M.F.A., assistant professor of communication arts, and will consider the film’s reflection on feminism today.
Un Prophète (A Prophet) by Jacques Audiard
Monday, November 7, 6 p.m.
The MMC faculty panel selected A Prophet to expose incoming students to other cultures and to ongoing debates concerning the place of cultural identity in a globalizing world. It will also complement the MMC freshmen’s first-year summer reading, Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist
, a novel dealing with the intersection of Muslim and non-Muslim identities in contemporary Pakistan and the United States. A post-screening discussion will be led by Magda Maczynska, Ph.D., assistant professor of English.
White Material by Claire Denis
Wednesday, November 9, 6 p.m.
In this film, Claire Denis explores the complex dimensions of relationships between France and the Francophone world. White Material
poses questions regarding identity, socioeconomic status in relationships, language and representation. It offers an opportunity to look at the problematic history of the French colonial presence and how these relationships and tensions manifest themselves today. A post-screening discussion will be led by Julie Huntington, Ph.D., assistant professor of French.
Copie Conforme (Certified Copy) by Abbas Kiarostami
Monday, November 14, 6 p.m.
Discussion of Certified Copy
will consider Abbas Kiarostami’s first film set outside of Iran, and his attention to replication/duplication of original artworks, particularly within a digitally networked global context. A post-screening discussion will be led by MJ Robinson, Ph.D., assistant professor in communication arts.
La Belle Endormie (The Sleeping Beauty) by Catherine Breillat
Tuesday, November 15, 6 p.m.
Catherine Breillat’s bold, feminist exploration of “female mythologies” in La Belle Endormie will complete the film series as it introduces students to an imaginative retelling of a classic tale students likely know best from Disney’s animated film, Sleeping Beauty. Comparing La Belle Endormie
to various literary versions of the Sleeping Beauty tale will not only serve to reinforce students’ basic analytic skills and vocabulary—from point-of-view, plot, character, symbolism, etc.—but will also open up cross-cultural and cross-genre dialogue among the works as well as consideration of psychological, social, structural and ideological (political, gender, etc.) dimensions of fairy tales generally. A post-screening discussion will be led by Cecilia Feilla, Ph.D., assistant professor of English.
“These particular films illustrate themes we have each been working on in our classrooms and scholarship,” said Chesler, emphasizing the selection committee’s various disciplines. “We hope that Marymount Manhattan students will similarly link the films to their own studies and engage in post-screening discussions during the festival.”
All films will be screened in The Commons, and are subtitled in English. Admission is free and open to the public. The Tournées Festival was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC) and sponsorship from the Florence Gould Foundation, the Grand Marnier Foundation and highbrow entertainment.
Marymount Manhattan College is an urban, independent, liberal arts college. The mission of the College is to educate a socially and economically diverse student body by fostering intellectual achievement and personal growth and by providing opportunities for career development.
Published: August 01, 2011
