Diversity Cafe 2008 "Exploring Diversity Through Cinema"
 Now Showing: Khadak [ April 2008 ]Event Details: Thursday April 17th in the Auditorium & Friday April 18th in Conference Room "A" Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring:Khayankhyarvaa Batzul, Byamba Tsetsegee Bagi and his grandparents live a nomadic life herding sheep in the frozen hills of Mongolia. Their pristine world is disrupted when a military convoy arrives, letting Bagi's family and others know that a plague has struck the animals in their region and they must relocate to a mining town, complete with high-rise apartments. In their first fiction film, documentary filmmakers Jessica Woodworth and Peter Brosens apply a distinctly impressionistic style to an original story with haunting themes. Capitalism is expanding into the most remote of regions and creates ongoing tensions between the past and the future, creation and destruction, and accepting or denying one's fate. Featuring remarkably meditative performances by Batzul Khayankhyarvaa as Bagi and Tserendarizav Dashnyam as the shamaness, Khadak starkly contrasts the richness of nomadic Mongolian life against the imposed modern city life that Bagi and his family must adjust to. But in the midst of that stark transition, Bagi begins to accept his fate and starts traveling between the natural world and a larger spirit world, as he was meant to. In its filmic eloquence, Khadak is itself raw material for a potential personal experience and a reminder of the harsh laws of the universe that many of us seem to forget. |
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 Now Showing: The Namesake [ March 2008 ]Event Details: Thursday March 20 & Friday March 21 in the Executive Board Room Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring:Kal Penn, Jacinda Barrett, Irrfan Khan, Zuleikha Robinson, Tabu, Sahira Nair When the the Ganguli family moves from Calcutta to New York, they embark upon a lifelong balancing act to meld into a new world without forgetting the old. Though parents Ashoke and Ashima long for the family and culture that enveloped them in India, they take great pride in the opportunities their sacrifices have afforded their children. Paradoxically, their son Gogol is torn between finding his own unique identity without losing his heritage. Even Gogol's name represents the family's journey into the unknown. |
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 Now Showing: Akeelah and the Bee [ February 2008 ]Event Details: Thursday February 21 in Conference Room B & Friday February 22 in the Conference Room A Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring:Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer) is an 11-year-old girl in south Los Angeles, with a love for words. Spelling words was a way for her to connect to her father who was killed when she was six. Akeelah is a bright student, but she has been skipping class and is barely passing. Akeelah's principal is about to put her in detention when he persuades her to enter the Crenshaw school's spelling bee. Akeelah wins the spelling-bee and now she can go to the state contest. Dr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne), a college professor and former national spelling-bee contestant, enters the picture. The principal has asked Dr. Larabee to help coach Akeelah. At first, Akeelah is stubborn and hardheaded that she doesn't need any help to win the next spelling-bee. However, Dr. Larabee shows Akeelah that she doesn't know all the words to win. During the summer, Dr. Larabee is a tough taskmaster teaching Akeelah as much as he can. He then gives her 5,000 new words to learn and tells her to do it on her own. With the help of the whole neighborhood, Akeelah learns all the words, and makes it to the national spelling-bee in Washington D.C. |
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 Now Showing: Double Happiness [ January 2008 ]Event Details: Thursday January 17th & Friday January 18th in the Building 549 Executive Board Room Time: 12:00 p.m. Starring:Sandra Oh, Alannah Ong, Stephen Chang, Frances You, Johnny Mah Jade Li is a twenty-two-year-old aspiring actress struggling to balance the traditional expectations of her Chinese family with the realities of living in the Western world. Jade is an irreverent, cheeky Chinese-Canadian still living at home with her parents and younger sister. When her family decides she's old enough to date, the matchmaking begins and Jade is set up with Andrew, a handsome Chinese lawyer. Afraid of being disowned by her father, Jade agrees to this arrangement, especially if it means that her family will leave her alone to pursue her passion for acting. But complications arise when she meets Mark, a white university student. As their relationship grows, Jade struggles to keep Mark at arm's length, trying to walk a line between her two worlds. She must answer the question she's been trying to avoid: you've got one life to live, what's it gonna be? |
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2007 Diversity Cafe Movies |
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2006 Diversity Cafe Movies |
