The Aventura Arts & Cultural Center Foreign Film Series returns for the 2015-2016 season with award-wining international cinema from Belgium, Estonia/Georgia, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Shelly Isaacs, founder/programmer and commentator for South Florida’s popular Café Cinematheque International programs, once again hosts the Foreign Film Series, introduces the films and leads post-screening discussions.
Commencing the series is Tangerines on Tuesday, November 10 at 7 p.m. A 2015 Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film, this haunting movie portrays life for an older Estonian man who after the 1990s-era war in Georgia remains behind in his nearly deserted village to help his neighbor harvest his tangerine crop. There, he becomes the unlikely host of two soldiers who fought on opposite sides of the war and shows them that compassion is the ultimate weapon to combat centuries of political, cultural and ethnic conflict. Presented in Estonian, Russian and Georgian with English subtitles.
Gripping and award-winning (Best Director, Montreal Film Festival; Special Jury Prize, Chicago Film Festival), The Verdict will be screened on Tuesday, December 8 at 7 p.m. This critically acclaimed courtroom drama portrays a Belgian man who exposes a serious flaw in his country’s justice system after a procedural error facilitates the release of his wife’s murderer and forces him to take matters into his own hands. Presented in Dutch with English subtitles.
About Elly on Tuesday, January 12 at 7 p.m. is the fourth film by award-winning director Asghar Farhadi. This Iranian psychological drama is centered around a group of old college friends who reunite for a weekend by the Caspian Sea. The hope is that Elly, who teaches one couple’s daughter and accompanies them on the trip, will hit it off with newly divorced Ahmad, who is searching for an Iranian bride. Compounding lies and deception soon plunge everyone into a complex mystery when Elly goes missing. Presented in Persian and German with English subtitles.
Guided by the superb sixth-time film pairing of director Christian Petzold and leading lady Nina Hoss, audiences will be drawn into Phoenix, on Tuesday, February 9 at 7 p.m., a broody post-World War II melodrama set in Berlin. Singer Nelly Lutz (Hoss) survives a Nazi concentration camp with her face disfigured from a gunshot wound and sets out to find her musician husband Johnny – whom she thinks betrayed her to save his own life. Not knowing it is Nelly when he meets her, Johnny sees a resemblance to his presumed-dead wife and hatches a plot to use her to get to Nelly’s family inheritance. Presented in German with English subtitles, this film is rated PG-13.
Loosely based on the New York Times best-seller by Herman Koch, The Dinner on Tuesday, March 1 at 7 p.m. chronicles how an obligatory family meal between two brothers and their wives turns into a tense drama after the couples discover that together their two teenaged children have committed a heinous crime. The families’ reactions reveal just how little the brothers know about each other as the moral limits of society are tested. Presented in Italian with English subtitles.
The Foreign Film Series concludes with Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed on Tuesday, March 29 at 7 p.m. Set in southeastern Spain, die-hard Beatles fan and middle aged English teacher Antonio decides to go on a 200 mile road trip in hopes of meeting John Lennon, who is filming How I won the War. On route he picks up two young hitchhikers and the unlikely trio forms a bond as each searches for life’s answers. Based on a true story, the film is presented in Spanish with English subtitles.
Individual tickets and six-film subscription packages go on sale Tuesday, Friday, July 10. Tickets for individual screenings are $11. Six-film series subscriptions are available at $9 per film and represent a savings of 15 percent on individual tickets. All screenings are general admission and the auditorium opens for seating 30 minutes prior to the start time.
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