Documentary about exonerated men will kick off ASU’s Monday Night Film Series The documentary, After Innocence, tells the dramatic and compelling story of seven exonerated men who were wrongfully imprisoned for decades and then released after DNA evidence proved their innocence. Director Jessica Sanders focuses on the men and their emotional journey back into society and efforts to rebuild their lives. A Sundance Film Festival winner, After Innocence will kick off ASU’s Monday Night Film Series on Oct. 2. “The moral purity of After Innocence is so overwhelming that it simply leaves you with nothing to say or do. It’s kind of beyond criticism,” writes Stephen Hunter with The Washington Post. A New York Times writer says, “Calm, deliberate and devastating, Jessica Sander’s documentary confirms many of the worst fears about weaknesses in the American criminal-justice system.” On Oct. 9, the French comedy, Russian Dolls, will debut. The film is about a group of young Europeans looking for personal and professional fulfillment in gorgeous locations. Starring Amelie and The DaVinci Code star Audrey Tatou, the film takes place in Paris, London, and St. Petersburg. Have you ever wondered how The New York Times’ crossword puzzle is created? In Wordplay, the audience meets Will Shortz, the brainiac behind the puzzles, and fanatics such as Former President Bill Clinton and comedian Jon Stewart, who are among the fifty million people who do crosswords annually. This film will be shown on Oct. 16. The true story of Germany’s most famous anti-Nazi heroine is brought to life in the multi-award winning drama, Sophie Scholl—The Final Days. Debuting on Oct. 23, director Marc Rothemund recreates the last six days of Sophie Scholl’s life—a journey from arrest to interrogation, trail, and sentence. Stephen Holden, writer with The New York Times, says, “This gripping true story conveys what it must have been like to be a young, smart, idealistic dissenter in Nazi Germany, where no dissent was tolerated.” The last film of the series is Half Nelson, a film which debuted in the Independent Film Competition at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was the favorite among a group of 50 members of the media, reviewers, and writers. This film will have opened in theaters in New York just one month before ASU’s screening and this will be its first non-theatrical screening. Half Nelson will be shown on Oct. 30, and it is the tale of a white Brooklyn middle school teacher losing his own battle with drugs while trying to mentor an African-American student whose family has been torn apart by drug dealing. This film is intended for adult audiences only. Funded by student activities fees, the film series is a month-long series of Monday night foreign or independent films. Steve Clements, Cree-Walker Distinguished Professor of Communications, is the director of the series. Admission is free. For more information, contact the Office of Student Activities at 706-737-1609. Other News Stories:
October 2006 |
