Saint Mary's Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership (CWIL) partnered with the Intercultural Studies Program to host the World Cinema Festival. The week-long event, which began Monday night, will present films from around the world until Friday evening.
"Our objective in organizing such an event is to bring to campus films from different areas of the world in order to not only widen students' knowledge of the art of film-making, but also to present different international perspectives and worldviews," Associate Director of CWIL and Director of the Intercultural Studies Program Mana Derakhshani, said.
The first film, "Blind Mountain," ran Monday in Vander Vennet Theater in Saint Mary's Student Center. The Chinese film, directed by Li Yang in 2007, centers around a young woman who soon after graduating college, was drugged, kidnapped and sold to a villager as his bride.
"No film can, of course, represent an entire culture," Derakhshani said. "These are cinematic windows and artistic representations created by individual filmmakers in a particular cultural context."
A Saint Mary's faculty member will introduce each film in the series and lead a discussion afterward.
A new film from a different culture will be shown every day this week at 7 p.m. in Vander Vennet at Saint Mary's. CWIL invites everyone to come out and watch these screenings, Derakhshani said.
"Light refreshments — including popcorn — will be served," she said.
Many of the films are in a foreign language with English subtitles, Derakhshani said.
