It’s called the Points of View Film Festival from April 25-28. We will show a series of short and feature films that offer us the opportunity to see the world from a different perspective.
“Film has a unique power to make visible the lives of others. Through film we can bare witness to the struggles of a child soldier – not just to survive, but to make a life for herself (War Witch). Through film we can better understand the individual toll of the promise of “diversity” in American education (American Promise). Film lets us explore the wages of loss and grief felt by communities and individuals (The Invisible Collection, Abuelas, and The Chair). Film lets us witness the transcendent power of musical performance (Shut Up And Play The Hits) and experience the exhilaration and shear terror of BASE-jumping and waterfall kayaking (One Step beyond and Huck).
Our festival is open to all genres but we are especially interested in first person narratives and intimate portraits that allow audiences to bridge differences of class, culture, race, ability, and experience. With twenty films from 10 countries, including documentaries, narrative features, short films and animation, this festival offers an incredibly diverse set of perspectives. From the women living with cancer struggling to recognize themselves in the mirror in Mondays At Racine, to the youthful exuberance of the most lovable losers you’ll ever meet in L’Equip Petit, we hope the films we’ve chosen offer insight and empathy.”
– Joseph Clark, Festival Director and Visiting Assistant Professor, American Studies Program, Colby College.
Saturday, May 4, 4:30 p.m.
Part of the Maine Film Center Premiere Weekend!
The new film from Waterville’s own Shadow Distribution, which brought national audiences such terrific films as The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, The Weather Underground, Latcho Drom and Heading South, enjoys a perfect 100% positive critics’ rating in Rotten Tomatoes!Children are saving lives in the slums of Kolkata. Amlan Ganguly doesn’t rescue slum children; he empowers them to become change agents, battling poverty and transforming their neighborhoods with dramatic results in this inspiring film. Filmed over the course of several years, The Revolutionary Optimists follows Amlan and three of the children he works with on an intimate journey through adolescence, as they fight for the better future he encourages them to imagine is deservedly theirs. In English and in Hindi with English subtitles. Unrated. 83 Min.
Professor Matthew Connelly, Department of History Columbia University in the City of New York
History as Data Science: Using Computational Analysis to Explore the Archives of the National Security State
The scope of official secrecy is rapidly expanding. The sheer scale of the national security state, the growth of electronic media, and the power that still comes from compartmentalizing information means that the government is only releasing a tenth as many pages of classified information as it produces. Hundreds of millions of secret documents are piling up, raising doubts about how we will be able to reconstruct the past and ensure government accountability. But historians are now teaming up with data scientists to analyze the millions of documents that are being released. Since these were among the first official documents produced and stored on computers, we can use techniques like natural language processing and machine-learning. It may now be possible to make out the broad patterns of official secrecy, attribute authorship to anonymous documents, and perhaps even predict the content of redacted text. But the political and ethical questions remain: what does the public need to know, and when do they need to know it?
Matthew Connelly is professor of history at Columbia University. His publications include A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (2002), and Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population (2008). He has written research articles in Comparative Studies in Society and History, The International Journal of Middle East Studies, The American Historical Review, The Revue francaise d’histoire d’Outre-mer, and Past & Present. He has also published commentary on international affairs in The Atlantic Monthly, The Wilson Quarterly, and The National Interest. He directs the University Seminar on Big Data and Digital Scholarship, the dual masters program with the LSE in International and World History, and the Hertog Global Strategy Initiative, a research program on the history and future of planetary threats. He received his B.A. from Columbia (1990) and his Ph.D. from Yale (1998).
Monday, April 29 at 7:00 pm in Parker-Reed Room, SSW
Francine D. Blau is Frances Perkins Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and professor of Economics at Cornell University. She is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a research fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany, and of the Center for Economic Studies/Ifo Institute in Munich, Germany, and a research professor at the German Institute for Economic Research, Berlin, Germany.
She received her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and her B.S. from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Blau has served as president of the Society of Labor Economists and the Labor and Employment Relations Association (formerly the Industrial Relations Research Association), vice president of the American Economic Association (AEA), president of the Midwest Economics Association, and chair of the AEA Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. She is a fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the Labor and Employment Relations Association. In 2010, she received the IZA Prize for outstanding academic achievement in the field of labor economics; she was the first woman to receive this prestigious award. In 2001, she received the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award from the American Economic Association Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession for furthering the status of women in the economics profession.
Valarie Kaur is an award-winning filmmaker, advocate, and director of Groundswell at Auburn Seminary, a multifaith social action network for justice. A third-generation Sikh American, she produced the acclaimed documentary film Divided We Fall (2008) on hate crimes after Sept 11th. She has presented her work in 200 U.S. cities and on media outlets such as CNN, NPR, the New York Times, and the BBC. Valarie earned bachelors degrees at Stanford University, a masters at Harvard Divinity School, and a law degree at Yale Law School, where she teaches visual advocacy as founding director of the Yale Visual Law Project.
She will speak at Colby on Tuesday, April 16th, 7pm (Diamond 145) about her work as a filmmaker and activist, and will discuss her current project on the Oak Creek shootings from this summer.
We will also screen her 2008 documentary Divided We Fall twice that week: Monday, April 15th, 7pm (Lovejoy 100) and Tuesday, April 16th, 4pm (Lovejoy 100)
All are welcome to attend all three events.
Her visit is sponsored by the H.C. Libby Lecture Fund, Women Gender and Sexuality Studies, English Department, Religious Studies, Oak Institute, and Goldfarb Center.
Don’t miss the 2013 New Works Festival-a celebration of new plays and dance work written, performed, directed and designed by Colby students and faculty.
The new plays were chosen through the New Play Competition, a campus-wide event conducted last fall. The New Works Festival is an Associated Event of the Colby Undergraduate Research Symposium.
New Works Festival 2013 April 19 and 20 at 7:30 p.m.
ONE AMAZING CELEBRATION OF NEW PERFORMANCE WORK! Strider Theater
This TUESDAY, APRIL 16! FROM THE LAND TO THE TABLE 7:00 PM / DIAM 122
Come see the fourth and penultimate film in the Cinema’s film festival this Tuesday! What do you get when you take seven directors from seven different countries with seven different cultures and points of view? “From the Land to the Table” is the first documentary of its kind in that it shows the perspectives of seven majorly talented filmmakers and directors from all over Latin America as they capture the conditions and cultural diversity of popular produce markets in their individual countries. For info. contact Dean Albritton
Current students, faculty, and staff are invited to a panel discussion with alumni who have applied their language and/or global studies major or minor to meaningful work outside the corporate world, such as in nonprofit organizations, the Peace Corps, or through Fulbright scholarships. Join six alumni ranging from the Classes of 2001 to 2010 as they share their stories and answer your questions about using your language minor or major beyond Colby. An informal reception in the Diamond Atrium will immediately follow.
On April 13, the stage comes alive with the vibrant cultures from all the “corners” of the world. We would like to wholeheartedly welcome you to attend this auspicious event hosted by International Club. The International Extravaganza will be in Page Commons @ 7PM at Colby this Saturday April 13th. Come and enjoy dances, songs, and other performances from around the world. The event will be followed up with food at the Pugh Center. This event is open to everyone. Please invite your friends. We hope to see you at the extravaganza tomorrow! I-Club
The UMaine School of Law’s Justice for Women Lecture Series brings a distinguished speaker to Maine annually to present a public lecture and to contribute to a global conversation about justice for women and girls. Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Peace Laureate and the social worker who started the movement depicted in the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell, will deliver the second annual lecture. During her visit, Ms. Gbowee will engage with students, faculty, and an array of community members to discuss challenges for women and girls in the developing world and their relevance to people in Maine.
Sponsored by WOCA and the GSD Program as part of Women’s History Month
Wednesday, March 20, 2013 7:00pm Westbrook Performing Arts Center
One Show Only!
Tuesday, May 20 at 5:00 p.m.
Filmmaker Susan Gagnon Presents
OVERVIEW
Four years in the making, DOWN BY THE RIVER’S EDGE is Susan Gagnon’s examination of the recent closing of Otis Mill, in Chisholm, located at the south end of Jay, Maine, where she grew up with her extended French-Canadian family. The story begins in the 1850s, when French-Canadians walked down from Quebec to Farmington, Maine to work as seasonal farm laborers, returning back to Quebec after the harvest season, and repeatedly coming back to the region until they had enough money to bring their entire family there. The story records generational oral accounts of retired papermakers whose families immigrated from Canada and the Maritime Provinces, Italy and Eastern Europe and their cultural struggles as the first Roman Catholic residents in the region, their lives immersed in the trinity of their new community: the Androscoggin River, which powered the mill, the Otis Mill which supported their large families, and the St. Rose of Lima Church, where they built the brick and mortar of a new community. Unrated. 60 Min.
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:40 pm by Benedicte Mauguiere
One Show Only!
Tuesday, May 20 at 5:00 p.m.
Filmmaker Susan Gagnon Presents
OVERVIEW
Four years in the making, DOWN BY THE RIVER’S EDGE is Susan Gagnon’s examination of the recent closing of Otis Mill, in Chisholm, located at the south end of Jay, Maine, where she grew up with her extended French-Canadian family. The story begins in the 1850s, when French-Canadians walked down from Quebec to Farmington, Maine to work as seasonal farm laborers, returning back to Quebec after the harvest season, and repeatedly coming back to the region until they had enough money to bring their entire family there. The story records generational oral accounts of retired papermakers whose families immigrated from Canada and the Maritime Provinces, Italy and Eastern Europe and their cultural struggles as the first Roman Catholic residents in the region, their lives immersed in the trinity of their new community: the Androscoggin River, which powered the mill, the Otis Mill which supported their large families, and the St. Rose of Lima Church, where they built the brick and mortar of a new community. Unrated. 60 Min.
“A shimmering coup de cinema to make your heart burst, your mind swim and your soul roar”—Robby Collin, The Telegraph. Self-consciously yet proudly and assuredly following in the path of Fellini in its sumptuous imaginativeness, decadent beauty and ironic humor, THE GREAT BEAUTY boasts 4 European Film Awards – Best Picture, Director, Actor and Editor! “Life is a performance and Rome is the stage in THE GREAT BEAUTY. Toni Servillo plays dapper, cultured and dilettantish Roman writer Jep Gambardella, always dressed in a fine suit and finer shoes. As the film opens, he celebrates his 65th birthday with a hedonistic party in his flashy apartment which overlooks the Coliseum on one side and a convent on the other. In his world, the high life meets the low life, writers and thinkers mingle with strippers and models. But now, Jep starts to wonder what he’s achieved and where it’s all heading. Paolo Sorrentino’s cinema is big. His eye is all-seeing. Sorrentino is so often compared to Federico Fellini that it feels right that he has made the city of LA DOLCE VITA the focus for this heady, beautiful, entrancing film”—Time Out. In Italian with English subtitles.
Dans les dernières années de sa vie, Marcel Proust se nourrissait pour l’essentiel de café au lait. Provenant des deux meilleurs torréfacteurs de Paris, son café était assemblé au gramme près, moulu fraîchement et extrait goutte à goutte selon un rituel immuable. Parfois, le verdict tombait, impitoyable : “Céleste, comment avez-vous fait ? Ce café est proprement infect. Est-ce qu’il n’est pas trop vieux ?”(Monsieur Proust, par Céleste Albaret, éd. Robert Laffont, 2001.)
Marcel avait raison ! Le café ne se bonifie pas avec le temps et doit être consommé très vite, dans l’année qui suit sa récolte (exactement comme une huile d’olive) et dans les trois semaines après sa torréfaction. Passés ces délais, le café moisit et perd ses arômes…
Pour Antoine Netien, fondateur du Café Coutume, rue de Babylone à Paris, “ce sont des évidences qui autrefois faisaient partie du bagage culturel normal. Jusqu’au début des années 1980, il y avait encore en France une tradition de la torréfaction artisanale. Les torréfacteurs vendaient leur café aux brasseries et aux boulangeries de quartier, les plus célèbres allant jusqu’à fournir l’Elysée et le Sénat. Avant que 95 % des cafés ne fussent vendus déjà moulus dans les grandes surfaces, les grands-mères possédaient encore un moulin, car elles savaient que le café perd ses arômes et s’oxyde cinq minutes après avoir été moulu”…
LES FRANÇAIS NE SAVENT PLUS LE PRÉPARER
Si le café est détestable en France et si les Français ne savent plus le préparer, la responsabilité, pour Antoine Netien, en revient aux grands groupes industriels (Richard, Illy, Malongo, Lavazza, Segafredo et Nespresso), dont l’emprise sur le monde de la restauration est devenue totale. “Appliquant des méthodes de dealers inspirées de la mafia italienne – on vous donne les machines et les tasses, en échange, vous vous engagez à acheter notre café ad vitam aeternam –, ces marques ont fini par imposer au public une certaine idée du café.”
Eric Beaumard, vice-meilleur sommelier du monde et directeur du George-V, à Paris, confirme cette analyse, reconnaissant qu’il lui faut chaque mois dire “non” à des lobbies de plus en plus influents et avides de faire du plus célèbre des palaces parisiens leur vitrine de prestige. “En France, la plupart des grands hôtels et des restaurants gastronomiques ont cédé à ces groupes et n’ont aucun scrupule àproposer du café en capsule. Au George V, c’est la passion qui nous guide. Le café mérite autant d’égards que le vin ou le thé. Jamais une capsule bourrée d’additifs n’égalera un grand café de terroir fraîchement moulu et torréfié !”
Sans compter qu’en payant une capsule 39 centimes d’euro les 5 grammes, le kilo de café finit par atteindre 78 euros : le prix d’un café d’exception !
INTÉGRISTE DU “MONO-VARIÉTAL”
Après s’être longtemps fourni chez Verlet (la plus ancienne brûlerie de Paris), Eric Beaumard fait aujourd’hui confiance à Hippolyte Courty, fondateur de L’Arbre à café, dont la boutique vient d’ailleurs tout juste d’ouvrir ses portes rue du Nil, dans le Sentier. Pour cet intégriste du “mono-variétal”, le café ne peut être qu’issu d’une seule variété, d’un seul terroir, d’une seule plantation et d’une seule récolte…“Qu’ils viennent d’Inde ou du Costa Rica, estime Eric Beaumard, les cafés d’Hippolyte sont tous fruités, fins et subtils, avec un goût naturel de cerise. Ils sont pleins de fraîcheur, on peut en boire des litres sans se lasser !”
Ces derniers mois, une multitude de “coffee bars” sont apparus à Paris, pour le plus grand bonheur des étudiants et des touristes étrangers, trop heureux depouvoir enfin déguster un bon café, loin des ignobles “petits noirs” à l’âcre odeur de suie qui vous laissent un goût de cigarette froide dans la bouche…
Qu’il s’agisse de Ten Belles, à deux pas du canal Saint-Martin, de Télescope, près du Palais-Royal, de Black Market, à Montmartre, du Café Lomi ou du Café Coutume, ces nouvelles adresses fascinent par leur ambiance cosmopolite, la beauté de leurs machines Marzocco (fabriquées à Florence) et le professionnalisme de leurs baristas, souvent tatoués et musclés comme dans un film de Quentin Tarantino… Le barista est à la fois un barman et un sommelier du café, capable de sélectionner une plantation, de torréfier les grains et d’entretenirsa machine. Il maîtrise toutes les techniques du café (filtre, espresso, cappuccino, piston et siphon) et sait dessiner des arbres ou des fleurs dans la mousse de lait des cappuccinos (le “latte art” est la signature des vrais baristas).
LES BARISTAS SONT DES DEUX SEXES
Chez Coutume ou chez Lomi, les baristas sont des deux sexes, mais étrangers pour la plupart : Australiens, Américains, Norvégiens, Hollandais, Sibériens, Polonais, Japonais… Un vrai métier d’avenir. Pour 2 euros la tasse seulement, ces experts vous serviront des cafés de rêve provenant des meilleures plantations du monde : Aida Battle au Salvador, Carmo Estate au Brésil, la Esmeralda à Panama ou encore Tekangu Karagoto au Kenya…
Pour Aleaume Paturle, fondateur du Café Lomi, mettre la main sur un café d’exception ne suffit pas, “encore faut-il savoir le torréfier sans le griller, afin d’en développer les arômes et les saveurs qui vont du fleuri à l’épicé, en passant par le beurre et le bois”. En Italie, estime-t-il, les cafés sont torréfiés à l’excès, ce qui permet de dissimuler les défauts des grains. “Brûlé, le café devient amer et c’est pour ça que les Italiens le sucrent.” En France, le problème est différent.“L’espresso est préparé à partir d’une dose de café trop faible, avec un temps d’extraction trop court, le tout servi dans un trop grand volume d’eau : ce que l’on appelle un jus de chaussette !”Chez Lomi, en tout cas, les cafés sont torréfiés et extraits à la perfection. Onctueux, ronds et intenses, sans amertume, ils sont servis dans de jolies tasses en porcelaine blanche de chez Bauscher.
Pour conclure cette enquête, un recul historique s’impose. Quand le café est apparu en France en 1669, ce fut, à en croire Jules Michelet (1798-1874), un grand moment de civilisation. Détrônant “l’ignoble cabaret où se roulait la jeunesse entre les tonneaux et les filles de joie, le règne du café fut, nous dit-il, celui de la tempérance et de la causerie”. Spiritualisant l’énergie et la sensualité, “il augmenta la netteté et la lucidité, fit jaillir l’étincelle et l’éclair de la vérité : jamais la France ne causa plus et mieux”. Et si cette renaissance du café à laquelle nous assistons aujourd’hui n’était que le symptôme d’une quête vers le vrai et le simple ?
Benedicte Mauguiere | Wordpress 