Community Calendar

With its script pulled straight from the trial minutes of the now-revered saint, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s classic 1928 silent film recounts the bias and badgering from court officials, whose inhumane treatment of Jeanne d’Arc ultimately led to her execution. Maria Falconetti plays the titular role in her final on-screen appearance,... communicating Joan’s sorrow and passion to the audience mainly with her eyes, making for a performance that is still hailed as transformative almost one hundred years later.
With live accompaniment by Marta Waterman.

Exciting chance to see the narrative feature film Outerlands by local filmmaker Elena Oxman ahead of its North American release. Oxman will by joined by the leading actor, Asia Kate Dillon for a Q & A on
Cass juggles jobs as a nanny, restaurant server, and party drug dealer to make ends meet and pay for their tiny San Francisco apartment. After a one night stand with Kalli, a co-worker they have a crush on, Cass agrees to watch her 11-year-old daughter, Ari, while she goes out of town. But as days pass without word from Kalli, Cass and Ari form a bond that spirals Cass back to their own difficult childhood and the pain they’ve been running from.

Exciting chance to see the narrative feature film Outerlands by local filmmaker Elena Oxman just after its digital release. Oxman will be joined by the leading actor and producer, Asia Kate Dillon for a discussion about their work.
Cass juggles jobs as a nanny, restaurant server, and party drug dealer to make ends meet and pay for their tiny San Francisco apartment. After a one night stand with Kalli, a co-worker they have a crush on, Cass agrees to watch her 11-year-old daughter, Ari, while she goes out of town. But as days pass without word from Kalli, Cass and Ari form a bond that spirals Cass back to their own difficult childhood and the pain they’ve been running from.

Step into the world behind the camera with Philip V. Caruso, a Rensselaer County resident and veteran still photographer whose work has helped shape the visual legacy of more than 70 major film and television productions. Caruso will reveal what it's like to experience movie magic in real time—from working alongside director Martin Scorsese on The Age of Innocence (filmed in part in Troy), to capturing iconic moments in motion for some of Hollywood’s biggest sets.

We will be holding our next Cafe Palestina event on Saturday, 12/6/25, from 5:00pm to 7:30 pm. We will be screening a feature length film that has received a great deal of attention and acclaim, From Ground Zero.

In discussing the film, Michael Moore said:
FROM GROUND ZERO, the first film ever from Gaza to be elected to the shortlist for the Oscar, is unlike any movie you’ve ever seen — filmed during a mass slaughter of civilians, the vast majority of them children, women and the elderly. In a brisk and powerful one hour and fifty-two minutes, it weaves together 22 short films made by 22 courageous Palestinian filmmakers living and surviving in Gaza. These are stories not told anywhere else. These stories are not on the evening news. Military leaders prohibit access so that journalists and filmmakers cannot bring us the truth. Even though you and I are the providers of all these horrific weapons, we are not allowed to witness what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have declared to be a genocide — war crimes committed in our name. Instead, we are the victims of a powerful propaganda campaign intended to dehumanize the 5 million human beings in all the Occupied Palestinian Territories who are forced to live imprisoned behind walls and barbed wire, forced into starvation, nearly every hospital and school in Gaza bombed to smithereens, the country’s homes reduced to rubble. My friends, FROM GROUND ZERO mixes dramatic storytelling, documentary, and animation. Working with whatever tools they were able to pull from the rubble of their homes and their cities, these filmmakers have come together to share these stories with us. Academy voters in their earliest round of voting have declared this to be an exceptional film. They recognize this brilliant movie for what it is: A masterwork of great art.

Video projects made by students in Film & Media Studies production courses.

Mel Stuart, 1 h 43m

In its first incarnation, Stax Records stood as a testament to the creative power of racial integration. But after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination shook Memphis to its core, new co-owner Al Bell steered the label toward a mission of African American pride and uplift. The culmination of his vision was a jubilant concert marking the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots, featuring Jesse Jackson and Richard Pryor alongside Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers. For all its inspirational moments, the show is stolen by prankster Rufus Thomas, who tames an unruly crowd with his irresistible rendition of “Do the Funky Chicken.”

Co-presented with Next Chapter Records.

Meet Harry Blacker and his friends. They have gathered at Bloom’s Kosher Restaurant in London’s East End to celebrate the 82nd birthday of Blacker, an artist, satirist, and cartoonist. They are busy schmoozing about the Jewish East End in the 1930s: “an eternal ghetto” of Eastern European immigrants, where poverty was noble, Yiddish theater was the synagogue, and the anarchists practiced the loving religion of rachmones and zedakah (compassion and charity). Punctuated with archival footage, animations of Blacker’s quirky cartoons, and the Yiddish swing music of the Barry Sisters, this is a social history of Jewish London at its most personal.
Runtime: 52 minutes