College opens fall film series

Enjoy tales of other lands and cultures this fall in a Friday night film series at Western Nevada College Carson City Sept. 18 through Dec. 4.

This week's film, "Getting Home," marks the first of 10 subtitled films that will be shown at 7 p.m., followed by a discussion. The price is $3 general admission, and free for WNC students with ID.

The series of thought-provoking films will explore cultures from around the world, offered by the Global Film Initiative, and funded in part by Nevada Humanities. Showings will be at Marlette Hall in the Cedar Building at 7 p.m. No advance tickets will be sold.

"Getting Home" (101 minutes) has been called a soulful and humane comedy. Zhao, a middle-aged construction worker, struggles to fulfill a dying coworker's last wish to be buried in China's Three Gorges region. Setting out with his colleague's body in tow, Zhao travels hundreds of miles across extraordinary countryside, encountering a number of colorful adventures and characters, and discovering love in some unlikely quarters.

Director Zhang Yang's humorous and moving tale of friendship offers a powerful, and sometimes slapstick, commentary on the value of community and human connectivity in modern China.

On Sept. 25, "Song From the Southern Seas" (80 minutes) portrays the quaint but scarred town of Tito Veles, Macedonia, in the post-communist world. Three sisters long to escape the suffocating environment of their dying community. Burdened by memories of their late father, each chooses a different path: Sapho struggles to secure a visa to Greece, Slavica desperately searches for a rich husband, and Afrodita harbors hopes for love and children. It is a contemporary story of urban decay, blending a stark realism with memorable performances to create a vivid landscape of life and longing.