The Movie Lovers' Club

50th San Francisco International Film Festival
April 26-May 10, 2007

25th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival
March 15-25, 2007

Santa Cruz Film Festival
April 20-28, 2007

San Jose Cinequest Film Festival * Revolution *
Feb. 28-March 11, 2007

Faces of Women in World Cinema
Film Studies Courses with Cathleen Rountree
University of California, Santa Cruz, Extension

1. Faces of Women in Middle Eastern Cinema

Winter-Spring Quarter, 2007
6 Meetings: Sundays, 2:30-5:30 P.M.
Feb. 11 & 25
Mar. 11 & 25
Apr. 1 & 15

In this course on women in Middle Eastern Cinema, images and roles of women will be discussed and analyzed in 12 narrative and documentary feature films and shorts from Iran, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Afghanistan, and North Africa. The goal is to enhance our knowledge, appreciation, and understanding of women's roles, experiences, and challenges in Middle Eastern cultures within an historical, contemporary, social, intellectual, and aesthetic context. We will accomplish these objectives via lectures, film viewing, class discussions, and selected readings, including feminist perspectives and issues of human rights. Films we may view include (among others): The Syrian Bride (Israel), Border Cafe (Iran), The Beauty Academy of Kabul (USA, Afghanistan), The House is Black (Iran).

All courses take place in Sunnyvale at the UCSC, Extension, Campus. For further information and to enroll in Faces of Women, contact the University of California, Santa Cruz, Extension: ucsc-extension.edu or 800.660.UNEX (8639).

Faces of Women in World Cinema

Faces of Women in Middle Eastern Cinema
Faces of Women in Latin American Cinema
Faces of Women in East Asian Cinema
Faces of Women in African Cinema
Faces of Women in South Asian Cinema
Faces of Women in Southeast Asian Cinema

Course Descriptions:

Your souls upon the screen
live lives that might have been
live lives that ever are...
"Projector," H.D.

Cinema has the capacity to both expose and mirror the human condition in profound ways. Hilda Doolittle's poem "Projector" perfectly conveys the intention of "Faces of Women in World Cinema," which is to "gaze" into the souls of those protagonists and characters whose lives we enter through the stories their films tell. A combination of cinema studies, multicultural studies, and women's studies, this series comprises six sequential courses on World Cinema and provides an overview of representations of women's experience through themes including motherhood, women's work, female camaraderie, female self-actualization, race, ethnicity, and female sexuality. Each course offers an opportunity to contemplate a different geo-political-social-cultural region through the films.

Some of the questions we will raise are:

-- How are women represented in the film?
-- How do gender, age, socio-economic status, and national identity affect these women's lives?
-- Does the film have a relationship with other international films of the past or present, and how?
-- How might this film have been different if it had been produced in Hollywood?
-- How does your own history, tradition, and life experience as viewers affect your filmic experience?
-- What insights do these films reveal and what clarity about life and society do they offer?

Schedule for the Series: Faces of Women in World Cinema

Winter-Spring, 2007
Faces of Women in Middle Eastern Cinema

Fall, 2007
Faces of Women in Latin American Cinema

Winter-Spring, 2008
Faces of Women in East Asian Cinema

Fall, 2008
Faces of Women in South Asian Cinema

Winter-Spring, 2009
Faces of Women in African Cinema

Fall, 2009
Faces of Women in Southeast Asian Cinema

About the Instructor: Cathleen Rountree, Ph.D., is a film journalist and author of 9 books, including The Movie Lovers' Club, about establishing meaningful film discussion groups, and The Writer's Mentor, on the art and craft of writing. Her 5-volume series On Women Turning 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70 is regarded as a classic in Women's Studies. Passionate about World Cinema and auteur theory, she covers film festivals for, and regularly contributes to, film and psychology journals, is a Columnist for the Santa Cruz Sentinel, and writes film reviews for the Mill Valley and San Francisco International Film Festivals. She is currently developing her first documentary film, based on her travels and research for Faces of Women in World Cinema. During the last 15 years she has designed and taught more than 20 courses at UCSC, Extension, and currently teaches Writing and Multicultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

In Print

The Festival Circuit "The 31st Toronto International Film Festival: Conversations with the World" Nov./Dec. issue of Release Print

"Inconvenient Truths: Documentaries in 2006" Santa Cruz Sentinel, "The Guide," 12/29/06

"'Casino Royale' Gambles on a New Breed of Bond" Santa Cruz Sentinel, "The Guide," 12/15/06

"Musings on Photographer Diane Arbus and the Biopic: 'Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus'" Santa Cruz Sentinel, "The Guide," 12/1/06

Cathleen's coverage of the 2006 SFIFF and her analysis of Carlos Bolado's film appear in the Summer Issue (2006, Vol. 25, no. 3, 5) of The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal:

"Commentary on the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival, April 20-May 4, 2006"

"Dreams as Memory and Metaphor in Solo Dios sabe (Only God Knows)," Mexico/Brazil, Dir. Carlos Bolado

(Contact info: The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, 2040 Gough Street, San Francisco, CA 94109-3418 or libraryjournal.org or subscribe@libraryjournal.org)

Her lengthy article on Hip-Hop Cinema appears in the Fall Issue (Sept./Oct. 2006) of Release Print:

"Hip-Hop Cinema and Crossover Dreams: From Beats to Frames"

Contact info: Release Print, The Magazine of the Film Arts Foundation, 145 Ninth Street, #101, San Francisco, CA 94103 or www.filmarts.org/magazine.php or releaseprint@filmarts.org)

Online

Read Cathleen's list of 27 best Hip-Hop films divided into 5 categories in weekly column, "The List," on sf360.org, the San Francisco Film Society's Website:

http://www.sf360.org/features/2006/07/post_8.html#more

Check back soon!

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