Wednesday,
January 26 ~ Sunday, January 30
History,
Memory and Cinematic Representation
The
issue of memory has recently become a preoccupation of both
historians and film theorists: Does art have a special responsibility
with respect to past events that remain invested with value
and emotion? How, then, do filmmakers confront the problem of
constructing a meaningful connection to the past? How does facing
the past through cinematic representation transform the present
reality?
 In
such documentaries as Ophüls’ The Sorrow and the Pity,
the interrelation of past and present and the multiplicity of
viewpoints form a complex work which resists any simple interpretation,
leaving the final judgement to the viewer. Atom Egoyan’s Ararat
borrows from fiction filmmaking in its conviction that
the truth can be found by unearthing events related to a traumatic
past which continues to reverberate in the present. In People,
Life, Years, the sui generis work by Gianikian and Ricci
Lucchi, excerpts from the diaries of Gianikian’s father give
narrative form to found archival footage, thus creating an emblematic
representation of historical events.
Our
series seeks to explore the varied representations of the formation
of historical consciousness expressed through the art of cinema.
For, as the eminent Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano once said,
"Memory is redemption, what one remembers is saved from
nothingness, what one forgets is abandoned."
The
History, Memory and Cinematic Representation film series was
co-curated by Arancha Garcia del Soto, Director of Refugee Initiatives
at the Solomon
Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict
at the University of Pennsylvania.
Wednesday
January 26 at 7:00pm
The
Children of Russia
dir.
Jaime Camino, Spain, 2001, DVD, 93 mins, b/w and color, Spanish
and Russian w/ English subtitles
During
the Spanish Civil War, fearing for their families' lives, Republican
freedom fighters from Asturias and the Basque Country sent their
children to the Soviet Union, never imagining that they would
live there for over 20 years and have families of their own.
Jaime Camino finds these children, now in their eighties, and
asks them to remember their
journey to and life in the Soviet Union.
Thursday,
January 27 at 7:00pm
Fernando
is Back
dir.
Silvio Caiozzi, Chile, 1998, video, 31 mins, color, Spanish
w/ English subtitles
Fernando
is Back depicts the recent work of Chile’s Forensic Identification
unit
in
its quest to reclaim the identity and to reconstruct the final
days of a young man who, among thousands of civilians, “disappeared”
following Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup.
followed
by
Discovering
Dominga: A Survivor’s Story
dir.
Patricia Flynn, USA , 2003, DVD, 60 mins, color
Discovering
Dominga follows 29-year-old
Iowa housewife Denese Becker when she decides to return to the
Guatemalan village in which she was born. Denese recalls the
buried memories of an unspeakable act of genocide against her
people and is drawn into the ongoing struggle of the survivors
to find justice.
Friday,
January
28 at 7:00pm
Little
Big Man
dir.
Arthur Penn, USA, 1970, 16mm, 147 mins, color
Little
Big Man is a poetic
journey into the mythology of the American West as told by 121-year-old
Jack Crabb, the sole white survivor of the Battle of Little
Big Horn. Crabb’s recollections form a spirited revisionist
history of how the West was won.
Saturday,
January 29 (shown in two parts)
Part
1 at 1:00pm and Part 2 at 5:00pm
The
Sorrow and the Pity
dir.
Marcel Ophüls, France, 1969, 35mm, 251 mins, b/w, English, German
and French w/ English subtitles
Marcel
Ophüls’ great 1971 documentary is the result of questioning
the widely held recollection that every man, woman and child
in Nazi-occupied France either joined the Resistance or helped
it. Exhilarating in its impact, even though so much of what
it shows us is appalling, The Sorrow and the Pity
stands among the most valuable achievements in cinema and historical
journalism.
Sunday,
January 30
at 1:00pm
Prisoners
of War 1914-1918
dir.
Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, Italy, 1996, 16mm,
60 mins, b/w and color, Italian w/ English subtitles
Prisoners
of War, a haunting
and beautiful film, is comprised of footage shot during World
War I from opposite sides of the conflict: Czarist Russia and
the Austro-Hungarian empire. The filmmakers’ patiently collected
shots portray the fatal timelessness of the past.
followed
by
People,
Life, Years
dir.
Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, Italy, 1990, 16mm,
70 mins, b/w and color, Italian w/ English subtitles
People,
Life, Years, based
on the diary of Gianikian’s father, is a meditation on the history
of Armenia during the first half of the 20th century. The filmmakers
use Russian archival film footage in a series of poignant images
that evoke the emblematic past of the Armenian people.
Sunday,
January 30
at 7:00pm
Ararat
dir.
Atom Egoyan, Canada/France, 2002, 35mm, 115 mins, color, English,
French, German and Armenian w/ English subtitles
 The
estranged members of a contemporary Armenian family face both
Turkey’s denial of their catastrophic history and their own
complicated present. Atom Egoyan’s most provocative film to
date, Ararat is at once a mysterious and powerful
story about reconstructing the truth.
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