“Cinema has become my life. I don’t mean a parallel world, I mean my life itself. I sometimes have the impression that the daily reality is simply there to provide material for my next film.” — Pedro Almodóvar There are many things to admire in the films of acclaimed Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodóvar. There are… Read more »
On a somewhat recent episode of the podcast “Blank Check with Griffin and David,” the hosts David Sims and Griffin Newman, along with special guest David Rees of The New Yorker are discussing director Hayao Miyazaki’s undeniable masterpiece Spirited Away. During the discussion Rees chimes in with a quote that I’ve long held in my… Read more »
Guest post by Rebecca Dirksen, Assistant Professor, Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. In New Orleans, there are jazz funerals to dance someone into the next realm after they pass away. Hearty brass bands with trumpets, trombones, and sousaphones accompany mourners as they process from the church down the street alongside the coffin of a deceased… Read more »
Guest post by Marissa J. Moorman. Babylon opens with protagonist “Blue” running through London streets with his friend Ronnie. Bags held tight to their chests, they jump over curbs and dodge cars in snaking traffic. Seeing two young men, one black, one white, running through gray London you might think they are running from. But,… Read more »
Guest post by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed. This semester the Ukrainian Homelands series includes Everything is Illuminated (2005), based on the novel of the same name written by the American writer Jonathan Safran Foer. Directed by Liev Schreiber, this film—which bridges at least five cultural dimensions (American, Jewish, Ukrainian, Russian, and German)—narrates the story of the Jewish… Read more »
Guest post by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed. This year the Ukrainian Homelands Series explores memory as one of the central elements for facilitating transcultural and transnational conversation regarding what we know about our own selves and others, what we remember, and what we forget. Sergei Loznitsa’s Donbass (2018) opens this year’s series: this film emphasizes the topic… Read more »