Daily Iowan

Issue date: 3/29/07 Section: 80 Hours

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Shifting rays of light spill from the projector into the dark room. The audience laughs as the man on the screen paints a portrait of Eva Braun lying nude against a background of mountains. The film, Schtonk!, a parody complete with Nazi propaganda songs, is part of a German cinema proseminar.

By various means, the UI sates Iowa City's appetite for foreign film, with screenings crowding the week. There's Hindi film night on Mondays, Israeli on Tuesdays, French on Wednesdays, and German on Thursdays. This weekend, the Asian/Asian American WAVES Film Festival will showcase films and speakers on Asian cinema. Foreign films are also screened at the Bijou.

This semester, the cinema/comparative literature department is offering two courses that explore cultural cinema. Screenings are required for students enrolled in the courses, but they are also free and open to the public.

"We often get a very large crowd. It often surprises people," said Corey Creekmur, the director of the Institute for Cinema and Culture.

Creekmur co-teaches Popular Hindi Cinema with South Asian scholar Philip Lutgendorf. The course's popularity has risen, Creekmur said; enrollment has almost tripled since its inception two years ago. He estimates between 10 and 30 non-students attend the screenings.

"I think it's partially just that this cinema is now a little more on the radar of people who are, I like to call them, adventurous film goers - people who want to see something different," he said.

Popular Hindi films made in Mumbai (Bombay) are referred to as Bollywood films. Most feature song and dance.

"If people have found Hollywood to be a little repetitive at this point or kind of obvious, [Bollywood] becomes a nice alternative," Creekmur said.

Claudia Pummer, a graduate student in film studies, is leading the German cinema proseminar this spring. The course is the German native's first course in German-only cinema.

"I'm not always sure how useful it is to think of cinema in these national categories," she said. "I think German cinema does a nice job of questioning the national anyway, because there were two nations for a long period of time."

With the help of the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts, Pummer has obtained prints of East German films. Pummer said the East German films were easy to obtain "because the state is over; it doesn't exist anymore. Rescuing or remembering the culture that doesn't exist anymore seems to have a lot to do with this." Many of the films are making their U.S. début in Iowa City.

Each film is followed by a discussion: Last week's post-film discussion included everything from a simple review of the film to comparing Britney Spears and Adolf Hitler. Michael Hetra, a UI graduate student in film studies who attends the screenings, said the films are always great.

Pummer said, "I like the way that films relate to our everyday life."

E-mail DI reporter Kate Casper at:
kate-casper@uiowa.edu

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German Film Series
When: Thursdays at 7 p.m.
Where: 101 Becker Communication Studies Building
Next films: Between (Claudia Schillinger, 1989), The German Chain-Saw Massacre/Das Deutsche Kettensägenmassaker (Christoph Schlingensief, 1991), and Former East/Former West (Shelly Silver, 1994)

Hindi Film Series:
When: Mondays at 7 p.m.
Where: E105 Adler Journalism Building
Next film: Amar Akbar Anthony (Manmohan Desai, 1977)

Israeli Film Series
When: Tuesdays at 7 p.m.
Where: Hillel, 122 E. Market
Next film: Avanim (Raphaël Nadjari, 2004)

French Film Series
When: Wednesdays at 6 p.m.
Where: 207 Phillips Hall
Next Film: Les Invasions Barbares (Denys Arcand, 2003)

WAVES Film Festival
When: Friday-April 1
Where: 101 Becker

Admission to all the above film series is free.

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Want to know more?

Check out the schedules for the German film series at International Programs' website

...Ad the Hindi film series at this page

Films in the Israeli film series are listed weekly at the Hillel House page

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