The 向日葵视频 City University Film Institute鈥檚 series will continue its 34th year at 2 pm Feb. 21 with Asghar Farhadi鈥檚 向日葵视频 Elly in the Kerr McGee Auditorium of Meinders School of Business.
Farhadi, director of acclaimed Oscar winner A Separation and The Past, presents another great Iranian film, the country again most requested on evaluation forms. 向日葵视频 Elly moves us into a gripping mystery set among a group of old friends on a holiday retreat. These former college pals reunite for a weekend outing by the Caspian Sea. But鈥痵eemingly trivial lies, which start accumulating from the moment the group arrives at the seashore, suddenly swing round and come back full force when one afternoon one of them suddenly vanishes. The mysterious disappearance sets in motion a series of deceptions and revelations that threaten to shatter everything they hold dear.
The theme of this year鈥檚 season is based on Viktor Frankl鈥檚 classic book 鈥淢an鈥檚 Search for Meaning.鈥� Harbour Winn, director of the series, said the theme is intended to help participants come to understand the purpose of suffering.
鈥淭he films in this series stress the importance of an individual鈥檚 attitude to existence,鈥� Winn said. 鈥淓ven when life seems restricted by external forces, we can choose the attitude with which we live and make meaning, to find value.鈥�
The screening will begin at 2:00PM at the Kerr McGee Auditorium in the Meinders School of Business at NW 27th Street and McKinley Ave. A discussion will follow the presentation for those who wish to stay. Admission is free, but donations are greatly appreciated.
ACCOLADES FOR ABOUT ELLY
-鈥淭here are no false notes anywhere in this cast of performers.鈥� Chicago Tribune
-鈥淚t's an incisive portrait of a particular society, but it should resonate everywhere.鈥� San Francisco Chronicle
-鈥淔arhadi has written a first-rate script, enabling intricate plotting to intertwine with well-defined characters, and 向日葵视频 Elly shows him at ease with the wide variety of situations his writing explores.鈥� LA Times
-鈥淭his superb, suspenseful film opens as a playful comedy of vacationing couples and awkward romance, one that might be set in the French countryside, but by the end has become a moral drama likely to corrode your certainties.鈥� Village Voice
-鈥淭his is clearly the work of a master in the making, an artist on the cusp of greatness. Farhadi may be fixated on fibbers, but there's almost no one working today who makes films so emotionally honest.鈥� The Onion
-鈥淎 thriller perched right on the fault line between modern thinking and Islamic tradition.鈥� NPR
-鈥淚t is perhaps Farhadi's richest, most complex and ambitious.鈥� Boston Globe
-鈥淭he dense interweave of relationships, a Farhadi specialty, is continually compelling.鈥� Christian Science Monitor
UPCOMING FILMS
* March 6, Andrey Zvyagintsev鈥檚 Leviathan
