Lenfest Film: Faculty Spotlight
The Faculty Spotlight series invites School of the Arts faculty members to bring the films and stories they love to life on the big screen. This fall, our season is a series on the edge, featuring movies that capture a moment when an old way of living gives way to something unfamiliar and new.
Launching the season on October 2, Associate Professor Elizabeth Ramírez-Soto celebrates the centennial of one of Latin America’s foremost directors, Margot Benacerraf, by presenting Araya, her 1959 film documenting the lives of Venezuelan salt laborers as mechanization threatens to disrupt centuries of manual labor. Next, on October 23, Professor of Professional Practice Maureen A. Ryan, Co-Concentration Head of Creative Producing, presents Brazil (1985), Terry Gilliam's dystopian black comedy featuring an everyman who might (or might not) be losing his hold on reality in his struggle against bureaucracy and an authoritarian regime. On November 13, Associate Professor of Professional Practice Andy Bienen, Co-Concentration Head of Screenwriting, will show The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), an American cinema classic that follows three US veterans returning from World War II, only to find that neither they, nor the home they left behind, are the same.
We are excited to share our faculty’s knowledge—and an exceptional season of films—with you. See you at the movies!
Sincerely,
Lauren Weigel
Director, Lenfest Center for the Arts
Faculty Spotlight is presented in collaboration with faculty in the Columbia University School of the Arts Film and Film and Media Studies Programs.
Above: Still from Brazil (Courtesy of Universal Studios)