the
meliorist
October 18, 2012 • 15
Maggie Kogut
Entertainment Editor October is library month. Makes sense. When it becomes too cold to enjoy spending more than three minutes at a time outside, what better pastime to take up than enjoying the vast media resource that is the Lethbridge Public Library (LPL)? Unfortunately, October is also mid-term month for most students. However, the world does not revolve around students, so October persists as library month. To celebrate this month, the LPL hosted their annual Foreign Film Festival from Oct. 10 to 12. Every evening of the festival featured a free screening of a foreign film in the Theatre Gallery of the library. This year’s films included the Iranian film A Separation, the Israeli film Footnote, and finally the Lebanese film Where Do We Go Now? The 2011 film, A Separation (directed, produced, and written by Asghar Farhadi), presents a depiction of modern day Iran through the conflicts faced by a married couple. The couple face the difficult decision of moving to another country to improve the life of their 11-year-old daughter or staying in Iran to look after the husband’s father who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. Being the first Iranian film to do so, A Separation won the 2012 Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. A Separation was also up for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar award, a rare occurrence for foreign language films. Footnote (2011) was also nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar but lost to A Separation. However, Footnote did win the Best Screenplay Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Joseph Cedar, this film explores the rivalry and relationship between father and son professors of Talmudic studies at the University of Jerusalem. As the son excels in the academic and public eye, the father is pushed into the shadows. This situation is shaken by the announcement of the winner of the Israel Prize, a national honour. This announcement brings to the surface years of tension that explodes on screen as the son and father deal with the problems that arise from what should have been a great honour in the family. Finally, Where Do We Go Now?, which premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, is set in a remote Lebanese village where Christians and Muslims live side by side. Tensions are bound to brew and then rise to the surface at some point. This fascinating comedy traces the story of the village as the women attempt to ease tensions by essentially tricking the men into staying peaceful. The procedure of keeping the village men in the dark and in a state of relative peace involves everything from sabotaging the radio, hiring Ukrainian dancers, and drugging the men with hash mixed in with pastries. The Lethbridge Public Library Foreign Film Festival is a great annual opportunity to step out of the blockbuster bubble and immerse yourself in foreign films. It can be very interesting to learn about everyday culture of other countries through the entertaining medium of film. As well, foreign films can offer us alternate views of important issues such as gender, nationality, religion, family, etc., that greatly differ from our own views. Easy access to foreign films is available at the LPL where their collection includes films from about 29 countries worldwide.