Belmont World Film's 23rd International Film Series examines ‘Freedom on Film'
'Normally, we have to look at the films and say, 'What connects them all?' but as I was watching [this year's] films, it's freedom, just coming back,' Gitelman explained in an interview with the Globe. 'I know people are very concerned about freedom and freedom of speech.'
Advertisement
According to an email from Gitelman, 'the lineup 'explores the many dimensions of freedom — from personal liberation to political resistance — showcasing compelling stories from around the globe … shedding light on the struggles and triumphs of those who dare to break barriers.'
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
'The series invites audiences to engage with diverse perspectives on what it truly means to be free,' she said in an interview.
A scene from director Georgi Unkovski's "DJ Ahmet," the opening film for Belmont World Film's 23rd International Film Series.
Handout
Coming-of-age drama 'DJ Ahmet' will kick off the festival on March 31 at Apple Cinemas in Cambridge. Set in a rural community in North Macedonia, writer-director Georgi M. Unkovski's film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sonoma International Film Festival and both
'It's a really sweet coming-of-age film, but also shows another side of culture that maybe we're not so familiar with. There are other ways of living in the world,' Gitelman said.
The film follows 15-year-old electronic music lover Ahmet as he navigates familial and social expectations and first love. The story explores the theme of generational divides, Unkovski said in
Following the screening, Boston University professor Dr. Irena Vodenska, who is from North Macedonia, will host a discussion about the film.
Advertisement
'The Good Teacher,' a film exploring sexuality, homophobia, and violence, and 'Waves,' a story of censorship, will also screen at Apple Cinemas as part of the festival. Librarian Benoit Landon of Boston-based French cultural nonprofit the
The remaining films will be presented at West Newton Cinema in Newton, with 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' and 'Manas' screening in April.
On April 21, 'Reading Lolita in Tehran,' an adaptation of Iranian-American writer Azar Nafisi's 2003 memoir, details her experience hosting a secret literary club with seven female students in post-revolutionary Iran in the mid 1980s and early-'90s.
In 'Manas,' 13-year-old Marcielle must grapple with the systemic exploitation and violence experienced by the women and girls in her small Brazilian village, and attempt to break the cycle for her young sister. Laura Ottoni of Grupo Mulher Brasileira (Brazilian Women's Group) and Belmont World Film board member and social worker Maria Carvalho will host a discussion of the film on April 28.
Roya Sadat's "Sima's Song," which follows the long-time friendship of two women with opposing political views, will have its North American premiere during the film series in May.
Handout
May's programming opens with the North American premiere of 'Sima's Song.' In the film, set in 1970s Afghanistan, Suraya, a wealthy communist activist, and Sima, a conservative Muslim, navigate their friendship amid the civil unrest and war. Berklee College of Music history professor James Bradford will speak following the film on May 5.
On May 12, writer Mathyas Lefebure will appear at the festival for the US premiere of 'Shepherds,' a film based on his memoir about his decision to trade an advertising career for life in the French Alps to become a sheep herder.
Advertisement
'Four Mothers,' screening May 19, is a lighthearted Irish comedy about the unlikely friendship that forms between a novelist, his unwell mother, and her three elderly friends. As serious as the festival lineup can be, 'sometimes they're just purely funny,' Gitelman said.
A scene from Irish comedy "Four Mothers," which screens on May 19 as part of the Belmont series. The film follows a novelist who goes on an existential journey to find himself with the help of his ailing mother and her three friends.
Handout
Pride and Refugee Awareness Month programming in June will include Romanian drama 'Three Kilometers to the End of the World' on June 2 and an award-winning French film, 'Souleymane's Story,' on June 9.
The closing film, 'Under the Volcano,' originally premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024. It follows a vacationing Ukrainian family stuck in Tenerife, Spain after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.
Gitelman says the festival has made her 'so much more compassionate, and that her hope for these screenings is to 'create understanding.' The festival's aim is to help viewers 'be understanding and appreciative of another culture, like things that we have in common, things that we have [that are] different.'
Single screening tickets start at $14 and can be purchased in advance or at the theater. Packages are also available. Additional information, screening times, and a full program can be found at
.
Haley Clough can be reached at
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
8 hours ago
- Boston Globe
The show will go on: After doubts, ‘Rock and Roll Yard Sale' in Providence set for Saturday
Related : But Chris Daltry, who co-organizes the 'yard sale' with his wife, Jennifer, told the Globe the show will continue on after all, with new partners, Moniker Brewery and the West Broadway Neighborhood Association. Advertisement 'As long as the weather cooperates, it feels really good,' Daltry said Monday, when asked how it feels knowing the fair is returning. (A rain date is scheduled for Sunday, he said.) Get Globe Rhode Island Food Club A weekly newsletter about food and dining in Rhode Island, by Globe Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz. Enter Email Sign Up The Daltrys, who own the online retail shop, What Cheer?, have organized the event for more than 20 years, which had been held on Westminster Street in downtown Providence for the last 15. But Chris Daltry said earlier this year the 'part marketplace and part block party' was on the rocks after In Downcity, a small business marketing group focused on the city's downtown, opted to end its partnership with the event. Joanna Levitt, In Downcity's marketing manager, said at the time the event had 'become larger than we have the capacity to manage in the way we have been in the past.' Advertisement Daltry had also said city officials had complained about alcohol issues at last year's 'Rock and Roll Yard Sale.' Josh Estrella, a city spokesman, said in February there were several regulatory protocols that were not followed, including 'insufficient oversight in the beer garden area, failure to conduct ID checks, and the absence of a clear designated space for alcohol service, which is required at outdoor events like this one.' A food truck also unlawfully served alcohol, Estrella said. This year, with the event moving to West Fountain Street, drinking areas will be contained to two breweries there, Moniker Brewery and Origin Beer Project, Chris Daltry said. 'We have made an effort to bring on extra security and volunteers, and, you know, to make sure that the people that want to drink can stay within the parking lots and areas that are on the property where the breweries are, and then the rest is more of a just an open air marketplace,' he said. 'So in a way, it works better than downtown, because there's more space than there was for the bars and stuff.' In an email on Monday, Estrella wrote that after the concerns around last year's event, a meeting between the organizers and city officials was held to 'review all necessary protocols and ensure compliance with regulations moving forward, including an agreed upon revision to the event's sanitation plan.' 'The City's existing requirements for these events have not changed, which include mandatory ID checks for alcohol purchases, a designated and enclosed area for alcohol service and an event organizer or designated security personnel monitoring the space whenever alcohol is being served,' Estrella wrote. 'As of today, event organizers have met the guidelines and requirements outlined in the application process and we look forward to a successful event.' Advertisement Chris Daltry said he is already thinking how the 'Rock and Roll Yard Sale' could grow next year, pointing to the bevy of restaurants and bars that call West Fountain Street home. 'This little strip, it's kind of a gem,' he said. 'It's still cobblestone. It's turning from what used to be all like auto and auto body [places]. There's been investment in some of the infrastructure in the buildings to turn it into more of a kind of a place to hang out and to eat and drink and whatnot. So there's a future there as well.' Christopher Gavin can be reached at
Boston Globe
13 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Gamm Theatre offers a transcendent telling of Tony Kushner's ‘Angels in America: Part One'
The story revolves around his diagnosis and illness, but Prior's life serves as a launching pad for weighty discussions about liberalism, conservatism, and race relations during the Reagan years. And there is no shortage of philosophizing about how the past shapes the present. The play also finds parallels between Judaism and homosexuality, reminding us about how swiftly a fearful and divided nation marginalizes, stigmatizes, and ostracizes 'others.' Get Globe Rhode Island Food Club A weekly newsletter about food and dining in Rhode Island, by Globe Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz. Enter Email Sign Up It is no wonder that the play is long — seven-and-a-half-hours in total — and told over two separate performances: 'Part One: Millennium Approaches,' which runs through June 15, and 'Part Two: Perestroika,' which runs from Sept. 25 to Oct. 12. Both are directed by Brian McEleney, who knows his way around this work having played the pivotal role of Prior Walter in Trinity Repertory Company's acclaimed 1996 production. Advertisement What is brilliant about this audaciously ambitious work is that it is at once imaginative and unpretentious, uncompromising and affable, and hard to watch but impossible to look away. What is particularly maddening is Kushner's constant intertwining of diatribes with dialogue, reality with drug- and disease-induced fantasy, and horror with humor. Advertisement Also, most actors play multiple roles to demonstrate the elasticity of gender, social and cultural identities, as well as the implicitly theatrical nature of this work. And as our nation once again gravitates toward ignorance and intolerance regarding LGBTQ+ communities, this play is — as Hilton Als duly noted — necessary. Director McEleney and his designers fully embrace the necessary nature of this work by having it drive the show's production values. The permanent set that dominates the Gamm Theatre stage, courtesy of Patrick Lynch, resembles the kind of filthy public restrooms in New York City's Central Park that hosted clandestine homosexual encounters in the mid-1980s, complete with sterile gray tiling tagged with profane graffiti and hate speech. The introduction of simple furnishings — in line with the playwright's call for a 'pared-down style of presentation' to make the show an 'actor-driven event' — serve to establish the various locations in which this three-act play takes place, but with the reminder of the illicitly and risk of homosexuality always in the background. These scene-changing chairs and tables are brought onto and off of the stage while the previous scene is still taking place, which accentuates the intersecting lives of characters who have been touched by AIDS or by those infected by it. These include Prior's politically committed but not personally disconnected lover, Louis Ironson (Ben Steinfeld, whose powerful depiction of this guilt-ridden man is masterful); Roy Cohn, a toxic, high-profile prosecuting attorney and powerbroker who refuses to admit he is gay (a mesmerizing Tony Estrella); a closeted Mormon legal clerk (a superb Jeff Church, whose stiff posture and tailored suit (courtesy of designer David T. Howard) attempts but cannot contain this character's abundance of internal conflict); his emotionally unstable and Valium-addicted wife (Gabrielle McCauley, whose ability to phase in and out of her character's drug-induced revelations and humorous delusions (courtesy of lighting designer Jeff Adelberg) is dazzling); and an ex-drag queen named Belize (an always intriguing Rodney Witherspoon II). Advertisement Some of the best and most truthful acting moments occur on the periphery of these scenes, as characters linger before leaving the stage. There we find McCauley's Harper paralyzed and in tears, Church's Joe lost in his personal pain, and Regen's Prior and Steinfeld's Louis reflecting on their respective futures. Even after the play's opening scene, in which a eulogy of an old woman is presented, the incredible Phyllis Kay as Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz stands frozen for a moment, overwhelmed by her own words. Just when you think that the acting on the Gamm Theatre stage could not get any better than that recently on display in ' A sign by the theater box office offers a warning about the play's profanity, brief nudity, and disturbing subject matter. Missing is mention of how 'Angels in America' is a cautionary tale that has come to fruition, which may very well be why this play's production is a late add to the already completed 2024/2025 season. Advertisement ANGELS IN AMERICA: PART ONE Play by Tony Kushner. Directed by Brian McEleney. At the Gamm Theatre, 1245 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick, R.I. Runs through June 15. Tickets $70-$80, plus fees. 401-723-4266, Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle. Connect with him .
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
Netflix announces premiere dates for Affleck and Damon crime thriller, ‘Stranger Things' final season
Advertisement Meanwhile, the final season of 'Stranger Things' comes out in three installments, starting with four episodes on Nov. 26 (that's the day before Thanksgiving, in case you were wondering), followed by three episodes on Christmas, and a finale that will pop up on New Year's Eve. Each episode drops at 8 p.m., so prepare accordingly. You can also expect a time jump — given the relentless march of time and the young cast, it was no longer exactly believable that any of these folks were pre-teens. Season 5 will begin a year after the events of season 4. The streamer has also released Advertisement Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers in "Stranger Things." Courtesy of Netflix The series, created by brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, first premiered in 2016. The show was a deliberate homage to '80s movies, with its suburban setting and latchkey kids getting into trouble while simultaneously juggling the challenges of school and puberty. Its world has slowly expanded over the years, although in some ways it sounds like they're getting back to their core storytelling in the final season: Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) has gone into hiding, and everyone is anxious at the approaching anniversary of Will's (Noah Schnapp) abduction. Expect the usual '80s haircuts and clothing choices, and let's continue to be grateful that the show has brought about a bit of a Winona Ryder renaissance. Lisa Weidenfeld is an arts editor at the Globe. Lisa Weidenfeld can be reached at
