FILM

HCC Northwest presents The REEL Culture Fall 2011 Film & Speaker Series at the Spring Branch Campus. This series headlines with prominent speakers and intriguing films meant to inform and motivate people to think more critically about their surroundings.

All programs are on Wednesday and begin at 12:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Faculty members will introduce films and lead critical evaluation/discussion. Guest speakers will be available for questions and answers following presentations. Book-signing opportunities are provided as appropriate.

Fall 2011 REEL Schedule:
Wednesdays at 12:30 p.m.
September 28th – November 9th

Culture & Anthropology Film/Speaker Series of Learning Enrichments since 2001!
Eagle Room @ Spring Branch Campus
HCC Northwest College 1010 West Sam Houston Parkway North 77043

FREE & OPEN TO ALL HCC STUDENTS, FACULTY, STAFF & FRIENDS OF NWC

WEEK 1.
12:30 p.m. September 28th, Wednesday
Film The Scarlet Letter (73 minutes) 1934

This black and white, 1934 film, with sensational content, is only one of several Hollywood film interpretations of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850’s novel about the 1640’s in a Massachusetts settlement. It opens with Hester Prynne (Colleen Moore) being ordered by the town’s morality police to wear a shameful Scarlet A (for adultery). Hester, a married woman in this Puritan community, refuses to name the father of her new infant daughter who is actually a highly respected religious leader. Compounding the drama, her long absent and much older husband, assumed to have been dead, returns to the settlement and vows evil revenge.

Introduction/Discussion with NWC English Professor Suna Purser Ridouane.

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NOTE: No Program on OCTOBER 5.
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WEEK 2 .
12:30 p.m. October 12th, Wednesday
Film Economics of Happiness (65 minutes) 2011

The Economics of Happiness uses the case of the transformation of a town in Tibet to describe “a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. Government and big business promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, people are work to resist those policies. As communities come together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization – a very different future may be possible (and perhaps, even happy.) http://www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org/

Introduction/ Discussion with NWC Philosophy Professor Dr. Nathan Smith.

WEEK 3 .
12:30 p.m. October 19th, Wednesday
Film Dhamma Brothers (76 minutes) 2010.
http://www.dhammabrothers.com/Trailer.htm

“An overcrowded and violent maximum-security prison, the end of the line in Alabama’s prison system, is dramatically changed by the influence of an ancient meditation program. Many of the 1500 prisoners who live behind high security towers, a double row of barbed wire, and an electrical fence, will never again know life in the outside world. But for some of the men, a spark is ignited when the prison hosts an extended Vipassana retreat – an emotionally and physically demanding program of silent meditation lasting ten days and requiring 100 hours of meditation.

Introduction/ Discussion with NWC Government Professor Donna Rhea.

WEEK 4 .
12:30 p.m. October 26th, Wednesday
Speaker Dr. Elora Shehabuddin
Feminism, Empire, and Muslim Women

Dr. Shehabuddin will present, in lively and clear style, the history of feminism in Muslim societies, and its complicated entanglement with empire and colonialism in the 19th and 21st centuries. Dr. Shehabbudin is Interim Director of the Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality and Associate Professor of Humanities and Political Science at Rice University (Harvard A.B.; Princeton Ph.D). She is the author of Reshaping the Holy: Democracy, Development, and Muslim Women in Bangladesh (Columbia University Press, 2008) and Empowering Rural Women: The Impact of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh (Grameen Bank, 1992). http://swg.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=151

WEEK 5 .
12:30 p.m. November 2nd, Wednesday
Film Salt of the Earth (94 minutes) 1954

Included in the prestigious National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, Salt of the Earth represents a milestone in the history of American movies. About a strike by Mexican American zinc miners in New Mexico, the film was financed in part by the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers. Largely unseen in America until the 1960’s this boldly independent film has since been duly recognized for its artistic and social importance.

Check the 1954 New York Times Review: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D00E6D61731E43ABC4D52DFB566838F649EDE

Introduction/ Discussion with NWC Labor Historian Professor Dr. Michael Botson.

WEEK 6 .
12:30 p.m. November 9th, Wednesday
Film Hot Coffee (89 minutes) 2011
http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/hot-coffee/synopsis.html

Frivolous lawsuits that take unfair advantage of American’s legal system?? “Seinfeld mocked the case and more than 15 years later, the McDonald’s coffee case continues to be cited as a prime example of how citizens use the courts to abuse the courts. But is that an accurate portrayal of the facts? This documentary film by Susan Saladoff is about “tort reform” and what you need to know about the restriction of legal rights of everyday citizens and the undermining of the entire civil justice system. “

Introduction/ Discussion with NWC Government Professor Dr. Veronica Reyna.

MORE INFORMATION: Dr. Ann Bragdon HCC-NWC Anthropology ann.bragdon@hccs.edu  713-718-5642.