First Annual Mason International Film Fest 4/11-13

Past Event

April 11, 2016, 7:00 PM to April 13, 2016, 9:00 PM EDT
Johnson Center, First night: JC Cinema

Global Film Club Presents the first annual Mason International Film Festival

Come see films from around the world, including Iran, India, Italy, and Spain. Our program offers entertainment, free food, and discussion during and beyond the festival.

Opening Night: Monday, April 11

5:30pm Johnson Center Cinema

Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro 2006)

"Pan's Labyrinth is terrific. It sets an Alice in Wonderland fantasy in the desperate conflict of fascists and insurgents in Franco's Spain, 1944. An Army officer, the brutal Capt. Vidal (Sergi López), has married and impregnated a young widow (Araidna Gil), bringing her and her 11-year-old daughter Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) to a house in the rebel zone he is patrolling. Ofelia, fiercely loyal to her mother and dead father, and rightly suspicious of the Captain, feels the force of strange creatures from the moment she arrives at her new home. While the adults career toward confrontation and tragedy, the girl becomes immersed in the magic world in the surrounding forest." -- Mary Corliss (See trailer here)

Special guest and discussion leader: Heba F. El-Shazli. Assistant Professor of Political Science at GMU's School of Policy, Government and International Affairs (SPGIA) and an adjunct faculty at Georgetown University’s Master’s Degree Program at the Center for Democracy, Heba is also an affiliate faculty at GMU's Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies (AVACGIS).

Tuesday, April 12 Johnson Center C Gold Room

**5pm On the Bride’s Side (Gabriele Del Grande, Antonio Augugliaro, Khaled Soliman Al Nassiry 2014)**

A Palestinian poet and an Italian journalist meet five Palestinians and Syrians in Milan who entered Europe via the Italian island of Lampedusa after fleeing the war in Syria. They decide to help them complete their journey to Sweden – and hopefully avoid getting themselves arrested as traffickers – by faking a wedding. With a Palestinian friend dressed up as the bride and a dozen or so Italian and Syrian friends as wedding guests, they cross halfway over Europe on a four-day journey of three thousand kilometres. This emotionally charged journey not only brings out the stories and hopes and dreams of the five Palestinians and Syrians and their rather special traffickers, but also reveals an unknown side of Europe – a transnational, supportive and irreverent Europe that ridicules the laws and restrictions of the Fortress in a kind of masquerade which is no other than the direct filming of something that really took place on the road from Milan to Stockholm from the 14th to the 18th of November 2013.

**7:30pm About Elly (Asghar Farhadi 2009)**

"Farhadi takes his time establishing the relationships and atmosphere in “About Elly,” most of which transpires in a scenically abandoned beach home, where the protagonists banter, cook, play charades and try to keep their young kids out of harm’s way in the waves that crash constantly just outside the spare, ramshackle house. And the filmmaker adroitly plants little bits of foreshadowing of the cataclysm that he stages with ingenious discretion, allowing momentary tragedy to give way to a good old- fashioned psychological mystery." -- Ann Hornaday (See trailer here)

Wednesday April 13 Johnson Center Cinema 5pm

5pm Bollywood Night Reception with food from Bollywood Bistro

6pm English Vinglish (Gauri Shinde 2012)

"Ultimately, what make English Vinglish memorable are the small, step-by-step choices Shashi makes to transforms herself. Yes, there’s grit there, but it’s tempered with compassion and dignity. The way the character has been crafted by Shinde, and interpreted by Sridevi, is gloriously feminine, and uniquely Indian." --Hollywood Reporter

The Mason International Film Festival is co-sponsored by Film and Media Studies, Off-Campus Student Programs and Services, University Libraries, and GMU Delta Kappa Alpha.

For more information or media requests, please contact GFC President Michael Kamel at mkamel2@gmu.edu.

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