In an effort to initiate public dialogue in the City of Arts and Innovation, about cinema as art, the greatest of all the arts nonetheless, a/perture cinema introduced a new screening and discussion series in 2015. This series centers on the notion of “looking at art cinema.” Together, the community and selected speakers, will discuss a curated list of films. Some of these films you have seen and some you may have not, but either way we hope the discussions will allow you to see them anew.
Looking @ Art Cinema: Faith, Doubt, and Transcendence in Film
The Winter 2017 series of Looking @ Art Cinema will provide participants an opportunity to explore and analyze cinematic representations of faith, doubt, and transcendence from a variety of religious perspectives. We will consider how questions of ultimate meaning have been posed on the screen and how we might contextualize the priorities and concerns of our individual films. In keeping with the overall theme of the series, we will also look at cinema as art to investigate whether filmmaking, against expectations, might be uniquely suited to depictions of the intangible, the unseeable—the sublime.
The Passion of Joan of Arc
October 20, 2018
In 1431, Jeanne d’Arc is placed on trial on charges of heresy. The ecclesiastical jurists attempt to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions.
Black Narcissus
November 10, 2018
After opening a convent in the Himalayas, five nuns encounter conflict and tension – both with the natives and also within their own group – as they attempt to adapt to their remote, exotic surroundings.
The Innocents
December 15, 2018
1945 Mathilde is a French Red Cross doctor working on a mission to help the French survivors of the German camps. While she works in Poland, she is asked for help by a nun.: in her convent, several nuns got pregnant…
Joshua Canzona is a PhD candidate in religious studies at Georgetown University and an adjunct instructor at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity. His research focuses on both Christianity and Islam and he has presented his work at Harvard, the University of Oxford, and the Sorbonne in Paris.