Eyes on Zora: The Life and Legacy of Zora Neale Hurston
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
January 29 (Friday)
Film screening and discussion with film director Darnell Martin and literature scholar Emily Bernard — 7:00 p.m. [Note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by Darnell Martin (United States, 2005, 113 minutes, color) Starring Halle Berry, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Michael Ealy

Based on Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel, adapted by playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, and produced by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films, this ABC-TV movie features Halle Berry as the free-spirited Janie, whose quest for love and a meaningful life challenges the morals of a small American town in the 1920s. 

Darnell Martin was the first Black American woman to write and direct a film for a major Hollywood studio—I LIKE IT LIKE THAT (1994). Her other credits include CADILLAC RECORDS (2008), starring Beyoncé Knowles.

Emily Bernard is an author, and professor and scholar of African American literature. She is the author of the New York Times Notable Book, Remember Me to Harlem (2001).

Directed by John Cassavetes (United States, 1976, 135 minutes, color)  Starring Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel

Ben Gazzara plays an insolvent strip club owner at the mercy of the Mob in this highly original film noir. Philip Lopate said, “The American gangster picture is thrown for a loop in John Cassavetes’s stylized, fatalistic crime story.”

Directed by David Shapiro (United States, 2015, 76 minutes, color)

MISSING PEOPLE is a nonfiction mystery about a woman who investigates her brother’s long unsolved murder. In the process she collects and researches the violent work and life of an artist from New Orleans. The film won the Best Documentary Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

David Shapiro, filmmaker, artist, and UAlbany graduate, directed the acclaimed 2000 documentary KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT: A MODERN CANNIBAL TALE, winner of many major film festival awards.

Seminar:  David Shapiro will hold an afternoon seminar on documentary filmmaking and art on Friday, February 26 at 4:15 p.m. in the University Art Museum, Fine Arts Building, on the UAlbany Uptown Campus.

Cosponsored by the UAlbany Art Museum in conjunction with the exhibition Race, Love, and Labor, and the School of Criminal Justice’s Crime, Justice, and Social Structure Film Series

Directed by Sidney Lumet (United States, 1962, 174 minutes, b/w) Starring Katharine Hepburn,
Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards

A family teeters on the brink of disintegration in Lumet’s adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s classic autobiographical play about an alcoholic father and drug-addicted mother.

Shown in association with the appearance of O’Neill biographer Robert M. Dowling on March 10.
(See Visiting Writers Series listing)

Directed by Victor Sjöström (Sweden, 1921, 93 minutes, b/w, silent with live accompaniment by Mike Schiffer)
Starring Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström, Tore Svennberg

The last person to die on New Year’s Eve becomes the next year’s driver of the coach that carries the souls of the dead in this silent classic based on the novel by Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf. Filmmaker Ingmar Bergman cited the film as a major influence on his work.

Directed by So Yong Kim (USA/Canada/South Korea, 2006, 83 minutes, color, in Korean and English)
Starring Taegu Andy Kang, Bokja Kim, Gina Kim

A Korean immigrant girl confronts the challenges of making a new life in a cold, bleak, unnamed North American city. Director So Yong Kim received the Special Jury Prize at Sundance for the film, her first feature. The screening will be preceded by the 1917 Charlie Chaplin short, THE IMMIGRANT, restored in 2014 by film historian David Shepard.

Sponsored in association with Albany Pro Musica’s City of Immigrants Concert, a celebration of the rich cultural heritage of the Capital Region. See http://www.albanypromusica.org/concerts/ for additional information.

Directed by Mike Nichols (United States, 1966, 131 minutes, b/w) Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal

This adaptation of playwright Edward Albee’s hilarious and harrowing masterpiece received thirteen Oscar nominations, and earned “Best Actress in a Leading Role” for Elizabeth Taylor.

Shown in association with the April 18 Burian Lecture with theatre director Pam MacKinnon, who received the 2013 Tony Award for Best Direction for her revival of the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
(See Visiting Writers Series listing)

BROOKLYN
April 29 (Friday)
Film screening of BROOKLYN with commentary by Colm Tóibín — 7:00 p.m. [Note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Directed by John Crowley (Ireland/UK, 2015, 111 minutes, color) Starring Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson

BROOKLYN, a hit independent film based on Colm Tóibín’s 2009 same-titled novel, tells the tale of a young Irish woman who emigrates to Brooklyn, where she must choose between two countries and her life in each. The Hollywood Reporter said, “Tóibín’s superior novel...has been turned into a beautiful and moving film.” The film stars Saoirse Ronan, whose performance in BROOKLYN earned her a 2016 Screen Actors Guild nomination for best female actor in a leading role.

NOTE:  Colm Tóibín will read from his work at 4:15 p.m. on Friday, April 29 in the Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center (See Visiting Writers Series listing)

Sponsored in association with Albany Pro Musica’s City of Immigrants Concert, a celebration of the rich cultural heritage of the Capital Region. See http://www.albanypromusica.org/concerts/ for additional information.