Maria Saakyan’s elegiac, semi-autobiographical, humanist drama The Lighthouse unfolds against the backdrop of the Caucasus wars that plagued Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. As the scope of this mass-scaled conflict extends itself to one woman’s small village, she is forced to drop everything, move to Moscow, and start over from scratch – thus bidding farewell to her home town and way of life, perhaps indefinitely.

Goran Radovanovic’s film “The Ambulance,” which portrays dramatic changes that Serbian society underwent before and after 2000, with its specific visual and narrative languages, opens new ways in understanding how film should treat history and reality.

Russia, 1936: revolutionary hero Colonel Kotov is spending an idyllic summer in his dacha with his young wife and six-year-old daughter Nadia and other assorted family and friends. Things change dramatically with the unheralded arrival of Cousin Dmitri from Moscow, who charms the women and little Nadia with his games and pianistic bravura. But Kotov isn't fooled: this is the time of Stalin's repression, with telephone calls in the middle of the night spelling doom - and he knows that Dmitri isn't paying a social call.

Amigos del Cine Latinoamericano Spring 2012 Film Series presents:

Alamar (México, 2009) Director, Pedro González-Rubio. Spanish with English subtitles.

Based on Osamu Tezuka’s 1949 manga and directed by Rintaro, this 2001 film is about a future in which humans and robots coexist, albeit uneasily. A private detective and his nephew travel to Metropolis to arrest a mad scientist for organ trafficking but instead meet with a beautiful, mysterious robot girl. The three get involved in a revolution that envelops the city.

The film will be introduced by Professor Charles Exley from the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and is presented in conjunction with his course, “World of Japan: The Culture of Detection.”

For the second year in a row, the Academy partners with Silk Screen to present three films throughout the month of January. This year's series focuses on challenging stereotypes. Each film will be followed by a moderated discussion.

For the second year in a row, the Academy partners with Silk Screen to present three films throughout the month of January. This year's series focuses on challenging stereotypes. Each film will be followed by a moderated discussion.

For the second year in a row, the Academy partners with Silk Screen to present three films throughout the month of January. This year's series focuses on challenging stereotypes. Each film will be followed by a moderated discussion.

Dir. Armando Robles Godoy
(Perú, 1970)

December 1 is World AIDS Day. Gao Jun is an AIDS orphan in a remote village of Anhui Province, China. In this Academy Award-winning documentary, the young protagonist does not speak a word until the closing minutes of the film. And little is known about him, not even his age. What is known, and is poignantly depicted in this film, is how traditional Chinese obligations of family and village collide with the terror of infection with HIV/AIDS and how these forces play out in the lives of children like Gao Jun.