Diversity Cafe 2009 "Exploring Diversity Through Cinema"
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Showing: Spirit Rider [ November 2009 ]Event Details: Thursday 19th & Friday 20th in the Building 549 Executive Board Room Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: Herbie Barnes, Adam Beach Without warning, 16-year-old Native American Jesse Threebears is uprooted from his latest foster home and returned to the reservation of his birth. Gradually Jesse begins to adjust to his new life with his grandfather (Graham Green, Dances with Wolves), as well as to find romance. But one boy, who knows the awful secret surrounding Jesse’s mother’s death, is determined to destroy Jesse’s newfound happiness. For the two adversaries, an annual horse race culminates in a life-and-death struggle that could finish them both. |
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Showing: The Milogaro Beanfield War [ October 2009 ]Event Details: Thursday 15th & Friday 16th in the Building 549 Executive Board Room Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: Rubén Blades, Richard Bradford Robert Redford's underrated directorial follow-up to his Academy Award-winning Ordinary People, The Milagro Beanfield War is a loose and whimsical fable about community pride and social activism in the face of modern progress. Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman) plays a local mechanic in a small New Mexico town who takes up the challenge of rallying support for a local farmer who uses water owned by a real estate developer to grow beans in his field. Everything escalates to a showdown between the townspeople and the developers, with unexpected results. |
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Showing: Train Man [ September 2009 ]Event Details:12:00 p.m. Thursday 17th & Friday 18th in the Building 549 Executive Board Room Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: Takayuki Yamada, Miki Nakatani Computer engineer Otaku (the Japanese term for "geek") is an average young man, dressed in unstylish clothes and dorky glasses. But as luck would have it, he encounters a pretty young woman on a commuter train and saves her from a lecherous molester, falling in love with her at first sight. A few days later he receives a thank-you message from the woman along with a set of Hermes teacups. Having never had a girlfriend or received a gift from a girl in his life, Otaku seeks out his pals on his BBS website for advice using his codename Train_Man (Densha Otoko): "How should I ask her out?" Deeply interested in Train Man's first love, his BBS pals eagerly supply him with advice. Encouraged by their support, Train_Man undergoes a total makeover for his first-ever date with "Hermess". Little does he know that he is about to ignite an Internet phenomenon... |
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Showing: Gran Torino [ August 2009 ]Event Details: Thursday 20th & Friday 21st in the Building 549 Executive Board Room Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: Clint Eastwood, Brian Haley, Christopher Carley, Geraldine Hughes Clint Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski (Eastwood playing his own age), widower, Korean War veteran, retired auto worker, and the last white resident of his Detroit side street. It's hard to say who irks him more--his blood kin (a pretty lame bunch) or the Hmong families who are his new neighbors. Kowalski's a racist, because it has never occurred to him he shouldn't be. Besides, that's the flipside of the mutual ethnic baiting that serves as coin of affection for him and his working-class buddies. Circumstances--and two young people next door, the feisty Sue (Ahney Her) and her conflicted brother Thao (Bee Vang)--contrive to involve Walt with a new community, and anoint him as its hero after he turns his big guns on some ruffians. The trajectory of this may surprise you--several times over. Eastwood opted to film in economically blighted Detroit--a shrewd decision, but it's his mapping of Walt's world in that classical style of his that really counts. Every incidental corner of lawn, porch, and basement comes to matter--and by all means the workshop/garage that houses the mint-condition Gran Torino which Walt helped build in a more prosperous era. This is a remarkable movie. --Richard T. Jameson |
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Showing: The Taste of Tea [ July 2009 ]Event Details: Thursday 16th & Friday 17th in the Building 549 Executive Board Room Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: SMaya Banno, Takahiro Sato, Satomi Tezuka, Tomokazu Miura, Tadanobu Asano Meet the Harunos, a rather unconventional, but happy and loving family nonetheless. They live in a small town in the mountains just out of Tokyo where life is good and quiet - but that doesn't mean they don't have their own little problems. As 8-year old Sachiko (Maya Banno) tries to get rid of a giant version of herself who seems to pop up everywhere, her older brother Hajime (Takahiro Sato), privately wrestles with his love-struck heart. Meanwhile, their mother Yoshiko (Satomi Tezuka) is working hard, coming out of retirement as an animator, as her husband and professional hypnotist Nobuo (Tomokazu Miura) watches on with slight apprehension. Yoshiko's brother, Ayano (Tadanobu Asano) is just visiting his hometown and staying with the family, but also has a hidden agenda; he needs to come to terms with a romance that ended years ago. Even Nobuo's brother and successful manga artist Todoroki has his problems. It's his birthday soon and he wants to give himself something special. And lastly there's Grandpa, the most bizarre and perhaps the most perceptive of all, who continues to search for a better way to live life to the full. Written, directed and edited by Katsuhito ISHII, The Taste of Tea is a unique and gentle family portrait tackling the universal themes of time, people and their lives. |
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 Now Showing: Milk [ June 2009 ]Event Details: Thursday, June 18st & 19th in the Building 549 Executive Board Room Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, James Franco, Alison Pill, Diego Luna When a famous person, like the nation's first openly gay male city supervisor, inspires an acclaimed book (The Mayor of Castro Street) and Oscar-winning documentary (The Times of Harvey Milk), a biopic can seem superfluous at best. Taking over from Oliver Stone and Bryan Singer, Gus Van Sant, whose previous picture was the more experimental Paranoid Park, directs with such grace, he renders the concern moot. Unlike Randy Shilts' biography, which begins at the beginning, Dustin Lance Black's script starts in 1972, just as Milk (Sean Penn, in a finely-wrought performance) and his boyfriend, Scott (James Franco, equally good), move from New York to San Francisco. Milk opens a camera shop on the Castro that becomes a safe haven for victims of discrimination, convincing him to enter politics. With each race he runs, Harvey's relationship with Scott unravels further. Finally, he wins, and the real battle begins as Milk takes on Proposition 6, which denies equal rights to homosexuals. He does what he can to rally politicians, like George Moscone (Victor Garber) and Dan White (Josh Brolin). While the mayor is willing, the conservative board member has reservations, and after Milk fails to back one of White?s pet projects, the die is cast, leading to the murder of two beloved figures. If Van Sant?s film captures Harvey in all his complexities (he was, for instance, a very funny man), Milk also serves as an enticement to grass-roots activism, showing how one regular guy elevated everyone around him, notably Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), the ex-street hustler who created the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial. Released in the wake of Proposition 8, California?s anti-gay marriage amendment, Milk is inspirational in the best way: one person can and did make a difference, but the struggle is far from over. --Kathleen C. Fennessy |
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 Now Showing: Travelers and Magicians [ May 2009 ]Event Details: Wednesday 21st & 22nd in the Building 549 Executive Board Room Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: Tsewang Dandup, Sonam Lhamo The two men embark on parallel, if separate, journeys. Their yearning is a common one--for a better and different life. Dondup, delayed by the timeless pace of his village, is forced to hitchhike through the beautiful wild countryside of Bhutan to reach his goal. He shares the road with a monk, an apple seller, a papermaker and his beautiful young daughter, Sonam. Throughout the journey, the perceptive yet mischievous monk relates the story of Tashi. It is a mystical fable of lust, jealousy and murder that holds up a mirror to the restless Dondup, and his blossoming attraction to the innocent Sonam. The cataclysmic conclusion of the monk's tale leaves Dondup with a dilemma--is the grass truly greener on the other side? |
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 Now Showing:Half Moon: A Musician's Last Journey [ April 2009 ]Event Details: 12:00 p.m. Wednesday 16th & 17th in the Building 549 Executive Board Room Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: Ismail Ghaffari, Allah Morad Rashtiani, Hedye Tehrani, Hassan Poorshirazi, Golshifteh Farahani HALF MOON is the moving and beautiful new film from Kurdish director Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses, Turtles Can Fly). Mamo, an iconic Kurdish musician in the twilight of his life and failing health, must lead a dozen of his sons to Iraq for a concert - "a cry of freedom" - to celebrate the fall of Saddam Hussein and the end of his repression of Kurdish music. Their plan is to drive across the border between Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan, but the road will be long and winding and the local wise man has predicted calamity. On their quest, the men will encounter the most sublime visions alongside the most horrendous brutality - primarily meted out by border guards. But first they must pick up Hesho, Mamo's exiled singer and muse. The "celestial voice" she represents takes on a divine, transformative power, and Mamo is left in a state of grace no one could ever have anticipated. |
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 Now Showing: Arranged [ March 2009 ]Event Details: Wednesday 25th, 12:00 p.m. in Building 549, Conference Room A & Thursday 26th, 12:00 p.m. in the Auditorium Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: Zoe Lister-Jones, Francis Benhamou, Laith Nakli, John Rothman, Marcia Jean Kurtz Two women whose peoples are often at odds find they're more alike than anyone expects in this drama from directors Stefan C. Schaefer and Diane Crespo. Rochel (Zoe Lister-Jones) and Nasira (Francis Benhamou) are two young women who have begun teaching at a public grade school in Brooklyn, NY. Rochel is an Orthodox Jew and Nasira is a Muslim of Pakistani descent, and the students and the administrators at the school are concerned there might be friction between the two teachers. However, over the course of their first year of teaching, Rochel and Nasira discover they have far more in common than they imagined -- both sometimes find themselves culturally out of place in 21st century New York, and both are trying to live within the traditions of their faith while struggling with their own feelings. In particular, Rochel and Nasira bond over the fact both are expected to enter into arranged marriages, Nasira with a wary optimism and Rochel with a great deal of trepidation. |
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 Finding Forrester [ February 2009 ]Event Details: Thursday the 19th in Conference Room "A" & Friday the 20th in Building 549 Conference Room "B" Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: Sean Connery, Rob Brown, F. Murray Abraham, Anna Paquin Because of scoring exceptionally high on a state wide standardized exam and being an exceptionally good basketball player Jamal Wallace is sent to a prestigious prep school in Manhattan. He soon befriends the reclusive writer, William Forrester. The friendship leads to William to overcome his reclusiveness and for Jamal to overcome the racial prejudices and pursue his true dream - writing. |
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 Outsourced [ January 2009 ]Event Details: Tuesday 20th & Wednesday 21st in Building 549 Conference Room "A" Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring: Larry Pine, Asif Basra, Ayesha Dharker, Josh Hamilton, Matt Smith (V), Jeneva Talwar Todd Anderson spends his days managing a customer call center for American novelty products in Seattle, until his job, along with those of the entire office, are outsourced to India. Adding insult to injury, Todd must travel to India to train his new replacement.As he lands in India, Todd is assaulted by the sights and sounds of a completely different culture. Navigating through the chaos of Bombay, Todd must train the most unlikely team in the ways of America and American novelty products. Between accent and culture training to education on the cheesehead hat and hot dog toaster, Todd frantically tries to increase the effectiveness of the Indian office, so that he can return home to Seattle.However, it is through his team of quirky yet likable Indian call center workers, including his friendly and motivated replacement, Puro, and the charming, opinionated Asha that Todd realizes that he too has a lot to learn--not only about India and America, but about himself. Todd soon discovers that being outsourced may be the best thing that ever happened to him. |
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