2008 Film Festival: Muslim Asia

Cavite,
Thursday, February 7, 7:00 p.m.
Hahn 101

(Directed by Neill Dela Llana & Ian Gamazon, Philippines/USA, 2005) English/Filipino/Tagalog w/English subtitles; 80 min.

Returning to Cavite for his father's funeral, Adam lands at the Manila airport expecting to meet his mother and sister. Instead, he is greeted by a disturbing cell phone call. An unknown voice demands that he comply with instructions, which will force him to make a choice with life and death consequences: carry out a terrorist mission resulting in the death of many, or send his kidnapped mother and sister to execution.

The Great Match,
Thursday, February  28, 7:00 p.m.
Hahn 101

(Directed by Gerardo Olivares, Spain, 2006)
Spanish w/ English subtitles; 88 min.

Gerardo Olivares' comedic film is about three diverse global groups all striving to catch the 2002 World Cup match between Germany and Brazil on television. While, to Western audiences this does not sound like a difficult feat as most of us are spoiled by our wealth of technological access, it proves to be quite an amazing journey for our heroes from three distinct locales of Niger, Mongolia and Brazil. The opening fifteen minutes is actually one of the most surprising and funny foreign film beginnings because it completely plays on western lack of experience with other cultures„when we meet the wandering Mongolians, the Tuareg caravan of camels in the Sahara and Amazonian Indios. (Jen Johans, Film Intuition)

Turtles Can Fly,
Thursday, April 10, 7:00 p.m.
Hahn 101

(Directed by Bahman Ghobadi, Iran/Iraq, 2005) Kurdish w/English subtitles; 95 min.

Directed by Bahman Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses), it is one of the first films shot in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is an emotionally powerful film that focuses on the lives of children struggling to survive in a Kurdish refugee camp shortly before the pending American invasion. "I wish everyone who has an opinion on the war in Iraq could see 'Turtles Can Fly'." (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times)

Student Video Submissions:
Thursday, April 24, 7:00 p.m.
Hahn 101