Through a new international film series, students will explore diaspora, belonging, and the human experience. The 2023-24 IU Global Film Festival will screen an international film each month at IU Cinema and partner cinemas across Indiana, bringing stories of movement and change from around the world to communities across our state. The festival is a collaboration between Hamilton Lugar School Area Studies Centers, IU Global, and IU Cinema, supported through IU Cinema’s Creative Collaborations program.
The films featured in the Global Film Festival were curated by the Hamilton Lugar School’s area studies centers that are nationally renowned hubs for language and cultural expertise. Centers selected films based on their relevance to current global issues and alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, aimed at global cooperation to improve human lives and protect the environment.
“Our area studies centers are always looking for ways to connect IU students, faculty, staff, and the community with the regions of the world in which we specialize,” said Colton Ames, Associate Director of the Institute for European Studies and coordinator for the film series. “We felt that a regular film series would both immerse viewers more deeply into these narratives, while also forming a communal experience where people could discuss and process the films together in conversation with the experts from our centers.”
In partnership with the IU Center for Rural Engagement, additional film screenings will be scheduled in locations throughout Indiana, including Spencer, Nashville, Salem, Huntingburg, and Jasper. All films are free and open to the public. Films at IU Cinema are free but ticketed. Visit https://am.ticketmaster.com/iucinema/buy
Schedule:
Tuesday, September 19 — Mama Irene, 7:00 p.m., Fine Arts 015
Sunday, October 15 — His House, 7:00 p.m., Story Inn in Nashville, Ind.
A refugee couple makes a harrowing escape from war-torn South Sudan, but then they struggle to adjust to their new life in an English town that has an evil lurking beneath the surface.
Tuesday, October 24 — R.M.N., 7:00 p.m., IU Cinema. Free but ticketed. Visit https://am.ticketmaster.com/iucinema/buy
A portrait of ethnic and economic resentments tearing at the fabric of a small mountain town in Romania
Monday, November 13 — Descendant, Time TBD, Tivoli Theatre in Spencer, Ind.
This documentary follows Africatown, a small community in Alabama, as residents share their stories as descendants of the last known slave ship to illegally transport human beings as cargo from Africa to America.
Tuesday, November 28 — Twice Colonized, 7:00 p.m., IU Cinema. Free but ticketed. Visit https://am.ticketmaster.com/iucinema/buy
After enduring a tragedy, an Inuit activist sets out to reclaim her heritage in this powerful documentary.
Monday, December 4 — Ashkal, 7:00 p.m., Fine Arts 015
A thrilling crime drama set in an abandoned apartment complex in Tunisia.
Tuesday, January 30 — Descendant, 7:00 p.m., IU Cinema. Free but ticketed. Visit https://am.ticketmaster.com/iucinema/buy
This documentary follows Africatown, a small community in Alabama, as residents share their stories as descendants of the last known slave ship to illegally transport human beings as cargo from Africa to America.
Tuesday, February 27 — Terra Mater / Tori & Lokita, 7:00 p.m., IU Cinema. Free but ticketed. Visit https://am.ticketmaster.com/iucinema/buy
Terra Mater is a short film. Technology and waste, in our lands, our systems, our bones. Wandering our spaces, she cannot help but wonder, where is the space for healing? Tori & Lokita follows a young boy (Tori) and a teenage girl (Lokita) who have left their home countries of Cameroon and Benin to make a new life in Belgium.
Tuesday, March 26 — Flee, 7:00 p.m., Location TBD
Flee tells the story of Amin Nawabi as he grapples with a painful secret he has kept hidden for 20 years, one that threatens to derail the life he has built for himself and his soon to be husband. Recounted mostly through animation to director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, he tells for the first time the story of his extraordinary journey as a child refugee from Afghanistan.
Tuesday, April 23 — The Exiles, 7:00 p.m., IU Cinema. Free but ticketed. Visit https://am.ticketmaster.com/iucinema/buy
Documentarian Christine Choy tracks down three exiled dissidents from the Tiananmen Square massacre, in order to find closure on an abandoned film she began shooting in 1989.
The IU Global Film Festival is curated through the collaborative efforts of IU Global, the Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute, the Institute for European Studies, Center for the Study of Global Change, African Studies Program, the Inner Asian & Uralic National Resource Center, the Center for the Study of the Middle East, the East Asian Studies Center, and the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, with support from IU Cinema.
