THE BLOT
September 25 (Friday)
Directed by Lois Weber
Starring Claire Windsor, Philip Hubbard, Margaret McWade
(United States, 1921, 91 minutes, b/w)

SILENT with live piano accompaniment by Mike Schiffer

A professor’s daughter, living in genteel poverty, is wooed by three suitors in this classic, rediscovered melodrama by Lois Weber, the preeminent woman director of the Silent Era.

BLUE MOON
OCtober 2 (Friday)
Directed by John A. Gallagher
Starring Rita Moreno, Ben Gazzara, Alanna Ubach
(United States, 2000, 89 minutes, color)

After forty years of marriage, a couple attempts to rekindle romance at their favorite Catskill retreat in this magical-realist fable. “A credible and touching portrait of a marriage…” (New York Times).
NOTE: See October 7 listing for Rita Moreno appearance

MILK
October 10 (Saturday)
Film Screening — 3:30 p.m., Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
Directed by Gus Van Sant
Starring Sean Penn, Emile Hirsh, Josh Brolin
(United States, 2008, 128 minutes, color)

Nominated for eight Academy Awards, MILK tells the epic story of Harvey Milk, the gay activist and UAlbany alumnus who became America’s first openly gay elected official and a universal symbol of the ongoing battle for civiil liberties.

Cosponsored by UAlbany’s Pride Alliance in conjunction with Community Day

THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN [ROOZI KE ZAN SHODAM]
October 21 (Friday)
Directed by Marzieh Makhmalbaf
Starring Fatemeh Cherag Akhar, Hassan Nebhan
(Iran, 2000, 78 minutes, color, in Persian with English subtitles)

In her award-winning first feature as director, Marzieh Makhmalbaf tells the stories of three Iranian women at three different stages of life: childhood, marriage, and old age.

THE MIDDLEMAN [JANA ARANYA]
October 23 (Friday)
Directed by Satyajit Ray
Starring Pradip Mukherjee, Satya Bandyopadhyay
(India, 1976, 131 minutes, b/w, in Bengali with English subtitles)

An ambitious young man resorts to immoral tactics in order to succeed in business in this little-screened classic by Satyajit Ray, one of world cinema’s most acclaimed directors.

WISE BLOOD
October 30 (Friday)
Directed by John Huston
Starring Brad Dourif, John Huston, Dan Shor
(United States/West Germany, 1979, 108 minutes, color)

Flannery O’Connor’s “Southern gothic” universe comes to life in this sharp and satiric adaptation of her eponymous 1952 novel. The film moves in and out of the life of a grifter-turned-preacher, with exotically comic and at times terrifying characters met along the way.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM
November 6 (Friday)

Film Screening and commentary by authors Russell Banks and Don DeLillo
7:00 p.m [NOTE EARLY START TIME]
Directed by Otto Preminger
Starring Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak
(United States, 1955, 119 minutes, b/w)

To celebrate Nelson Algren's centenary the Writers Institute offers a rare glimpse into the life and work of a great American novelist by two equally great novelists he inspired, Don DeLillo, who joins the Writers Institute in a rare public appearance, and Russell Banks, recent State Author. DeLillo and Banks will speak about their mentor after the screening of this gritty tale of jazz, heroin, hep-cats and low-lifes in post-war Chicago, Algren's famously-named "city on the make." Frank Sinatra plays against type and turns in what is often considered to be his best performance on screen.

THAT UNCERTAIN FEELING
November 13 (Friday)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Starring Merle Oberon, Melvyn Douglas, Burgess Meredith
(United States, 1941, 84 minutes, b/w)

In this gem of the screwball comedy genre, a bored Park Avenue socialite begins a love affair after a quack psychoanalyst attributes her chronic hiccups to marital dissatisfaction.

STRAY DOG [NORA INU]
November 20 (Friday)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Starring Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji
(Japan, 1949, 122 minutes, b/w, in Japanese with English subtitles)

Major director Kurosawa established an enduring claim to the American “film noir” genre with this tale of a homicide detective who embarks on a frantic search after losing his gun to a pickpocket on a Tokyo bus.

PYGMALION
December 4 (Friday)
Directed by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard
Starring Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson
(United Kingdom, 1938, 96 minutes, b/w)

Many critics regard this as the very best of several adaptations of George Bernard Shaw’s popular play about a Professor of Phonetics who teaches a Cockney flower girl how to speak.