Film Festival and Lecture Series Returns to the Linda with Outer Space-Themed Lineup

By Bethany Bump

ALBANY, N.Y.  (Oct. 13, 2022) — The 7th annual UAlbany Film Festival and Lecture Series is back in a big way this year with a focus on outer space and the fears, fantasies, fictions and films it’s inspired throughout the years.

After two years of scaled-back programming brought on by the pandemic, the festival will make its triumphant return to the community this weekend with screenings of culturally diverse films and conversations that explore themes around space and humanity’s connection to the vast worlds that lie beyond the earthly realm we currently call home.

Presented by the University’s Center for Humanities, Arts, and the Technosciences and the UAlbany Libraries, the festival runs Thursday through Sunday, with an opening reception and symposium tonight in the UAlbany Science Library Atrium and Standish Room from 5 to 7 p.m. All other screenings and events will be held at The Linda, WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio at 339 Central Ave. in Albany.

“This is our bounce-back year,” said Rae Muhlstock, director of the festival and lecturer in the University’s Writing and Critical Inquiry Program. “We have people coming from as far as Buffalo. We have people from New Jersey and Florida who came to past events and then moved who are still planning to come up.”

This year’s screenings will include the French short "A Trip to the Moon" (1902) by Georges Méliès, featuring a live music accompaniment by UAlbany professors Hilary Walther Cumming and Duncan J. Cumming; Ridley Scott’s "The Martian" (2015), starring Matt Damon; Stanley Kubrick’s "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968); Pixar’s computer-animated "WALL-E" (2008) and Theodore Melfi’s "Hidden Figures" (2016), based on the true story of the overlooked Black women mathematicians who helped NASA win the Space Race.

There will also be conversations with keynote guests, National Book Award-winning author William Alexander and NASA Engineer Teresa Kline.

This year’s theme was selected because of its relevancy to current popular culture and discourse, Muhlstock said. Recent developments in civilian space travel continue to dominate headlines and concern over human-caused climate impacts making the Earth uninhabitable over the long term are fueling serious inquiry into the perils and possibilities of space colonization.

“Our themes are always in response to whatever is really trending in popular culture but that people aren’t necessarily talking critically about,” she said.

Faculty from across the humanities will introduce the films, which offer a case study in how humanities and the arts help fuel scientific inquiry, imagination and advancement, Muhlstock said.

“The tagline for this film festival is that the arts teach us how to dream; the sciences make those dreams a reality,” she said. “We really wanted to emphasize how one can't happen without the other and in order to be a thriving species, we need to have both and we need to invest in both.”

The festival has drawn large numbers to downtown theater venues in previous years for screenings themed around monsters, vampires and zombies. In 2019 it strayed from speculative fiction for a deep dive into food representation on film and drew a standing-room only crowd for a keynote by acclaimed actor Tony Shalhoub, whose 1996 film "Big Night" explored an Italian immigrant experience of food in America.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the series to go virtual in 2020. In-person screenings returned last year but were held in the Campus Center Ballroom and remained small in format.

Muhlstock has been itching to see the festival return to a theater venue off campus, where students have an opportunity to mingle with people from outside the campus community and vice versa.

“The Linda is an amazing home,” she said. “The idea is to get the students into a movie theater to view things communally. They’ve gotten so accustomed to viewing film on devices smaller than their heads with really poor sound quality. It’s not the immersive format that cinema was really designed to be. It’s the reason we have the blockbuster, right? But there’s even something that happens with a small and quiet and relatively simple film when you watch it as part of a community that’s very special. You’re laughing with people. You’re crying with people. You’re gasping with people.”

The festival is co-sponsored by the NYS Writers Institute and Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment of the Humanities.

All events are free for UAlbany students with ID. Others can purchase tickets through The Linda. Individual screenings are $5 for adults and $2 for seniors and children under 15. Keynote events are $10 for adults and $5 for seniors and children under 15. Weekend passes are $25.

Screening Schedule

Thursday, October 13, UAlbany Science Library Atrium and Standish Room

5-7 pm: Opening Reception and Interdisciplinary Symposium featuring:

Teresa Kline, Project Manager, Office of the Chief Engineer, NASA

William Alexander, National Book Award-winning author

Amanda Lowe, UAlbany Libraries

Kevin Knuth, UAlbany Department of Physics

and the premiere of "The Banana Between Us," a film by UAlbany students Zach, Shynelle, Jonathan, and Abigail

Friday, October 14, The Linda

6:30-7:15pm: "Le Voyage dans la Lune" / "A Trip to the Moon" (Georges Méliès, 1902)

With live music accompaniment and Q&A with the musicians

7:30-9:30 pm: "2001: A Space Odyssey" (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

Introduced by Dr. Sean Rafferty, Department of Anthropology

Saturday, October 15, The Linda

12-2:30 pm: District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, 2009)

Introduced by Farhana Islam, Doctoral Candidate, Department of English

3-5 pm: "Arrival" (Denis Villeneuve, 2016)

Introduced by Dr. Mary Valentis, Department of English

7-8 pm: Keynote Interview and Q&A with NASA’s Teresa Kline

8-10 pm: "The Martian" (Ridley Scott, 2015)

Introduced by Teresa Kline, NASA

Sunday, October 16, The Linda

1-2 pm: Keynote conversation with National Book Award winner William Alexander

2-4 pm: "Wall-E" (Andrew Stanton, 2008)

Introduced by William Alexander, National Book Award-winning author

4:30-7:30 pm: "Hidden Figures" (Theodore Melfi, 2017)

Introduced by Irina Holden, UAlbany Libraries