This film is part of the Silk Screen Film Festival. Admission is free to Pitt students with an ID. Lahore used to be a mecca of Pakistani culture, a thriving center of art, music and poetry. When the Islamic government took over, strict rules were imposed that made art a punishable sin. The Sachel Studio Jazz Ensemble help show a side of Pakistan rarely seen by Western audiences: a lively, colorful place, with cultural heart. When the group’s rendition of "Take Five" achieved viral status on YouTube, they are invited to play in New York City with jazz legend Wynton Marsalis.

This film is part of the Silk Screen Film Festival. Admission is free to Pitt students with an ID. Rarely explored in film, Memories of the Wind tackles the Armenian genocide in a subtle, yet affecting way. Aram is a poet on the run in the winter of 1943. Suspected of being a communist sympathizer, he is forced to flee Istanbul during the latter half of World War II. He winds up in secluded expanse of forest on the Soviet-Georgian border where a boorish Turkish man named Mikhail and a beautiful young Russian woman named Meryem provide shelter.

This film is part of the Silk Screen Film Festival. Admission is free to Pitt students with an ID. Elza wishes to flee from her husband. The marriage is loveless and occasionally violent and her husband Dzhinga is a petty criminal, but Elza gets cold feet and returns to him. When Dzhinga does not return from an illegal fishing trip and is presumed dead, Elza must contend with this new, abrupt reality. Newly pregnant, she feels a powerful novel sense of freedom. The Gulls was shot on location in the Russian Republic of Kalmykia.

This film is part of the Silk Screen Film Festival. Admission is free to Pitt students with an ID. Since the 1970s, hip-hop music has spread across all walks of life. Despite the movement, Asian rappers continue to be the minority. Bad Rap follows the careers of four Asian-American rappers and their struggles to create an identity and compete with mainstream rappers.

Directors: Jaeki Cho, Salima Koroma
Cast: Awkwafina, David Lee, Jonathan Park, Richard Lee
Language: English

This film is part of the Silk Screen Film Festival. Admission is free to Pitt students with an ID. Director M. Manikandan delighted Silk Screen audiences last year with his film Crow’s Egg and now he’s back with Crime is Punishment, a massive genre redirect. The film tells the story of Ravi, a mild-mannered collections agent who lives his life with no real drama. Without warning, Ravi finds himself in the middle of the murder investigation of his neighbor where his testimony could afford him the expenses of an eye transplant he so desperately needs.

This film is part of the Silk Screen Film Festival. Admission is free to Pitt students with an ID. Wednesday May 9 is an Iranian Film portrayed in three intertwining narratives. A peculiar philanthropist, Jalal, runs an unusual contest in a local newspaper offering to donate money to the most worthy applicant. Believing that his commitment to help Tehran’s poor community will ease the pain he feels over the loss of his 5-year-old son, Jalal finds that he might be in over his head.

Weekly screenings of films from countries represented in the 2016 Russian, East European and Near Eastern Summer Language Institute (SLI).

Poverty, Inc. is an award-winning documentary that critically examines the multibillion dollar aid industry. The West has positioned itself as the protagonist of development, giving rise to a vast multi-billion dollar poverty industry — the business of doing good has never been better. Yet the results have been mixed, in some cases even catastrophic, and leaders in the developing world are growing increasingly vocal in calling for change. Drawing from over 200 interviews filmed in 20 countries, Poverty, Inc. unearths an uncomfortable side of charity we can no longer ignore.

ASP hosts filmmaker Cherif Keita as he screen and discusses his film "Remembering Nokutela." The director of the film, Dr. Cherif Keita, will discuss Nokutela's contributions within a larger discussion of the role of women in liberation movements. Dr. Cherif Keita is a professor of Francophone literature at Carleton College in Minnesota. A native of Mali, he has published book and articles on both social and literary problems in contemporary Africa.

Summary of Crimes (132 minutes, Chinese with English subtitles) Xu Xing's documentary searches for a group of peasants from the lowest stratum who were labeled "active counter-revolutionaries" during the Cultural Revolution era (1966-1976). They have been left with no means to recount what they suffered decades before, or to tell what has befallen them since. As the years pass, they have simply been forgotten.