Director: Martin Repka

The film tells the story and of an older poetry club, Lonely Runners. But it is mainly about the great friendship between Ivan, Peter and Ivan. At the beginning of this road movie, Peter leaves Offenbach am Main, his current residence, to go to see Ivan in Bratislava and then to go together to Liptovský Mikuláš to visit another Ivan. They want a meeting between Lonely Runners and Lonely Runners. But the main motto and inspiration behind is their friendship.

82 min.; 2019; Genre: creative documentary
Slovak version; Subtitles: English

Director: Igor Volosin

The marriage of Milan and Táni Labát is going through a crisis. Their daughter Lenka has a hard time surviving the estrangement of her parents. One holiday night changes their lives. Lenka celebrates her sixteenth birthday with her friends in a neighboring village, but she will not return home. Milan kidnaps the alleged perpetrator, Lenka's friend Lukáš. He imprisons him in a cabin in the woods. But did Lukáš really kidnap Lenka?

114 min.; 2018; Genre: drama
Slovak version; Subtitles: English

Anthony Shim | 2023 | 117 Minutes | Canada

Set in the 90s, a Korean single mother raises her young son in the suburbs of Canada determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind. RICEBOY SLEEPS is loosely based on the writer-director’s own upbringing. This is a fully bilingual affair that jumps decades and continents, bursting with ambition and energy, albeit in that quietly Canadian kind of way. RICEBOY SLEEPS takes a tough, hard approach to kick through the darkness. But once it breaks through that wall, the daylight bleeds in, blindingly bright.

Our Return to Italy is a short fictional film about an Italian-American patriarch who wants to uproot his multigenerational family winemaking business to Italy but hides the truth about his motives, directed by Emmy-nominated, award-winning, husband and wife filmmakers Marylou & Jerome Bongiorno.

Marylou and Jerome Bongiorno will be available for Q&A via zoom.

Please note:

The pre-screening presentation will be held at 6:30 PM in the Italian Nationality Room (CL 116) at the University of Pittsburg's Cathedral of Learning.

The film will be shown at 7:30 PM in the Frick Fine Arts Building at 7:30 PM.

Synopsis:
During World War II, the U.S Government restricted the actions and freedoms of 600,000 Italian residents of the United States. All were declared “Enemy Aliens,” and many were placed under curfew, banned from their workplaces, evacuated from their homes and communities, and even placed in internment camps.

il Messaggero (The Messenger) tells the story of an Italian man from a small village in Italy and his idea to bring messages of hope and joy to the United States as an immigrant in 1966. In doing so, he unknowingly immortalizes a generation of Italians through rare audio recordings and more than 50 years later we see its impact on the next generation living in the U.S. The film explores the amazing true history of one man's mission and his unique way of capturing the stories of those left behind in Italy.

Li Ruijin | 2022 | 133 Minutes | China

Join the German Department and its sponsors for a Night at the Movies on Pitt's Campus for the Oakland Premier of Mack The Knife. This critically acclaimed German film tells the story of the attempt to turn Bertolt Brecht's anti-capitalist play The Threepenny Opera into a commercially successful movie. While the Studio wants to censor the racy parts of Brecht's play and its socialist critique, the author does not bow down but takes the Studio to court.

Amanda Nell Eu | 2023| 95 Minutes | Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, France, Germany, Netherlands, Indonesia, Qatar

Zaffan (12) struggles with puberty, discovering a terrifying secret about her physical self. Her failed attempts to conceal the inevitable lead her friends to find out who she really is, and they attack her. As Zaffan is further provoked by her own community, she soon learns that embracing her true self is the only answer to her freedom.

AWARDS: 2023 Cannes Film Festival Critics’ Week Grand Prize

Chan Ching-lin | 2022 | 135 minutes | Taiwan

In Taiwanese filmmaker Ching-lin Chan’s bracing feature debut, a pigeon returns after seven years, reopening a family’s old wounds and festering resentments in a town enmeshed in the illegal pigeon racing circuit. The story revolves around a poor family dependent on its racing pigeons which is shaken by economic pressures, restless youth and the disappearance of their son. The arrival of another drifting youngster brings changes to their lives. But also heralds an approaching storm.