Archives for February 2020

The Fifth Annual International Film Festival, March 4th – 19th

The Ross Pendergraft Library invites the campus and the community to our International Film Festival.  The festivities kick off March 4th with a screening of “Yojimbo”, a Japanese samurai film directed by Akira Kurosawa, at 7:00 PM at the Doc Bryan Lecture Hall.

Eight films in four languages are included in this year’s festival.  Each screening is considered an On Track event for Global Focus.

All screenings are free and open to the public.  Each film begins at 7:00 PM at Doc Bryan Lecture Hall.

Here’s a listing of dates and films:

Poster for YojimboWednesday, March 4 @ 7:00 PM: Yojimbo

Japanese with English subtitles, 1961. A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.  Directed by Akira Kurosawa, the film was later remade in the United States as A Fistful of Dollars.

Poster of the film Amour, featuring an older womanThursday, March 5 @ 7:00 PM: Amour

French with English subtitles, 2012. Georges and Anne are an octogenarian couple. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, also a musician, lives in Britain with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple’s bond of love is severely tested.

Poster for the movie Ran featuring fire and Japanese scriptTuesday, March 10 @ 7:00 PM: Ran

Japanese with English subtitles, 1985. In Medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his empire to his three sons. However, he vastly underestimates how the new-found power will corrupt them and cause them to turn on each other…and him.  Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of King Lear.

Movie poster of Die WelleWednesday, March 11 @ 7:00 PM: Die welle (The Wave

German with English subtitles, 2008. A high school teacher’s experiment to demonstrate to his students what life is like under a dictatorship spins horribly out of control when he forms a social unit with a life of its own.

Movie posterThursday, March 12 @ 7:00 PM: La reina de España (The Queen of Spain)

Spanish with English subtitles, 2016.  Nearly twenty years after the events of “The Girl of Your Dreams”, in the 1950s, Macarena Granada, who has become a Hollywood star, returns to Spain to film a blockbuster about Queen Isabella I of Castile.

Movie poster featuring a woman on a bikeTuesday, March 17 @ 7:00 PM: Barbara

CANCELLED

German with English subtitles, 2012.  A doctor working in 1980s East Germany finds herself banished to a small country hospital.

 

Movie poster featuring attractive couple in thoughtful posesWednesday, March 18 @ 7:00 PM: El secreto de sus ojos (The secret in their eyes)

CANCELLED

Spanish with English subtitles, 2009.   A retired legal counselor writes a novel hoping to find closure for one of his past unresolved homicide cases and for his unreciprocated love with his superior.

Movie poster featuring cartoon bear and mouseThursday, March 19 @  7:00 PM: Ernest et Célestine

CANCELLED

French with English subtitles, 2012.  The story of an unlikely friendship between a bear, Ernest, and a young mouse named Célestine.  Animated film.

 

The festival, now in its fifth year, is organized by ATU faculty members Dr. Nelson Ramìrez, professor of Spanish; Dr. Lowell Lybarger, associate librarian; and Philippe Van Houtte, associate librarian and visiting lecturer of French.

For more information about the festival, including posters, ratings, summaries, and film trailers, visit the International Film Festival website.  Or follow the library on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for more events and programs.

Explore Abandoned Arkansas on Monday, February 10th

Poster for the Abandoned Arkansas announcing times and locaitonJoin the Ross Pendergraft Library on Monday, Feb. 10th at 7:00 P.M. in RPL 300A as we take a trip through the state’s forgotten places with authors Ginger Beck and Michael Schwarz who will discuss their book, Abandoned Arkansas: An Echo From the Past. As part of the Library’s Second Monday Author series, we are featuring two local authors who will share their adventures and photographs of once popular destinations which now lie in ruins throughout the state.

Book cover for featured book, Abandoned ArkansasExplore the forgotten history of the Natural State, from the Majestic Hotel in Hot Springs to Dogpatch near Jasper in Newton County. Abandoned Arkansas weaves historical background and photographs from the past alongside their heartbreaking pictures of ruin from the present.  Through historic documentation, these photographers hope to immortalize the stories of the places they visit beyond the building’s finite lifespan, and to preserve an echo from the past.

For more information on their work, as well as photographs of more than 150 locations they have visited, see their website, Abandoned Arkansas, at https://abandonedar.com/

For more information about this event or the Second Monday Author series, contact Luke Heffley at (479) 964-0546 or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to stay in the loop on all Library events.