Worldly Weekend Watch

Kean Stage has prepared Sunday seats for international emprise, and its occupancy is an invitational. Starting January 29, students, faculty, and friends will find their on-campus entertainment options broadening – across borders. The International Film Series continues with five weekly-consecutive foreign films, each highlighting a different culture, country, and story.

Each film begins at 3 p.m. and is hosted in the new, 326 seat Jules Schwartz Lecture Hall, located in the STEM Building of Kean University. Current students are granted free admission with their Kean ID card. Faculty, staff, and alumni pay $5 with their Kean ID; and general public pay $8. Tickets may be purchased on location, just prior to the start of the film – immolating classic movie night culture.

The film series returns from a successful, shorter Fall season. The launch installment, Coco Before Chanel, is a French film featuring Audrey Tautou – an actress best known for her work in Amélie and The DaVinci Code. Soundtrack for a Revolution and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, an American documentary and Swedish adaptation-film, respectively, rounded off the Fall season of the film festival.

This semester's lineup includes Water, a Canadian film about women's rights clashing Hindu-widow tradition, showing on January 29; Departures, a Japanese film about the undertaking of a new, unorthodox profession, showing on February 5; The Secret in Their Eyes, an Argentinean film about recollection and rediscovering, showing February 12; Ajami, an Israeli crime drama about consequences in conflicting views and cultures, showing February 19; and Pan's Labyrinth, a Mexican film about a little girl's dual worlds and the monsters in both, showing February 26.

Each of the films in the Kean Stage International Film Festival were selected using a criterion gauging newness, diversity, critical acclaim, and film release details. The films in this series are award winning, short release films, with the earliest of the releases from 2005.