2011-2012 Season

Sarah's Key February 15, 2012 - 7pm

In modern-day Paris, a journalist finds her life becoming entwined with a young girl whose family was torn apart during the notorious Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in 1942.

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The March Double Feature is brought to us by
Rural Route Films

Himalayan Double Feature
March 14, 2012 - 7pm

Summer Pasture

Dir. Lynn True & Nelson Walker. 2010. 86 min. Zachukha, Tibet
In recent years, growing pressures from the outside world have posed unprecedented challenges for Tibetan nomads. Rigid government policies, rangeland degradation, and the allure of modern life have prompted many nomadic families to leave the pastures for permanent settlement in towns and cities. According to nomads, the world has entered duegnan — dark times. Summer Pasture a.k.a. A Nomad’s Life is a feature-length documentary that chronicles one summer with a young family amidst this period of great uncertainty. Locho, his wife Yama, and their infant daughter, nicknamed Jiatomah (“pale chubby girl”), spend the summer months in eastern Tibet’s Zachukha grasslands, an area known as Wu-Zui or “5-Most,” the highest, coldest, poorest, largest, and most remote county in Sichuan Province, China. The story of a family at a crossroads, Summer Pasture takes place at a critical time in Locho and Yama’s lives, as they question their future as nomads. With their pastoral traditions confronting rapid modernization, Locho and
Yama must reconcile the challenges that threaten to drastically reshape their existence.

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Land of the Pure

Dir. Peter Mallamo. 2010. 33 min. Baltistan, Pakistan
In the northern areas of Pakistan, amid the rugged Karakoram Mountains, lies a relatively isolated area called Baltistan. For over fifty years tourism in the region flourished as mountaineers flocked to the Karakoram to scale some of the world’s most challenging peaks, such as K2, the 2nd tallest mountain in the world. The Balti people have struggled in this beautiful and harsh environment, but because men were able to find work as porters to assist expeditions, many families enjoyed an income to supplement their subsistence lifestyle. Then the terrorist attacks of 9-11 and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the ‘war on terror’ all but halted tourism in the area (although the majority of the people in this remote region have never heard of 9-11 or Osama bin Laden). This film is a journey into the lives of the Balti people and illustrates how events that occur in one place can have a drastic impact on those living a world away.

The Trip April 18, 2012 - 7pm

Over the course of six lavish meals at six different restaurants in and around the Lake District, Lancashire and the Yorkshire Dales, this brilliant comic duo freestyle with flair, driving each other mad with a constant battle of one-upmanship, all the while riffing hilarious impressions of iconic actors including Michael Caine, Sean Connery and Al Pacino.

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