By Erasmus Baxter
On November 2, at 6 p.m. the Reel World film series will be showing “Quilombo,” a Portuguese language film about a community of escaped slaves in 17th century Brazil. The screening will be in Miller Hall 138.
Vicki Hamblin is the executive director of the Institute for Global Engagement, which sponsors the film series.
“It actually goes back to a 17th century historical event,” she said. “Some slaves decided to break away from their masters and to form a nation where they made their own rules. And that lasted for a little while before the Portuguese military came upon them and put an end to that rather violently.”
Produced in 1986 by a Brazilian director, the movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the highest prize the festival offered.
The film will be introduced by Jared Hardesty, an assistant professor in the history department. Afterwards he will lead a discussion about the movie.
Hamblin said that the Reel World Film Series is meant to integrate with classes that are being taught.
“We also knew that faculty like to use films in classes, but couldn’t always afford to bring them to campus just for a class,” she said. “So we decided we would ask faculty what films they wanted to use, we would get rights to showing the film or buying the film, and then we would screen it for them and they could lead the discussions and invite students and the whole community to the film for free.”
The film series is in its third year, according to Hamblin.
“We wanted to bring more international presence to campus,” she said. “[We] decided that bringing films from around the world, or films that talked about the US, or films that dealt with issues we’re all concerned about would be one way to do that.”
The series shows a movie on the first Wednesday of every month of the academic year, for a total of nine movies a year.They show both documentaries and feature movies, as well as the occasional concert, Hamblin said.
“We’ve had films about being transgender on a Navajo reservation, we’ve had films about decommissioning nuclear plants in Europe, just about all kinds of different topics,” she said. “And our goal of course is to just to bring films to campus that students might not ordinarily see because it’s not Hollywood.”
She also said that the discussion is an important part of the screening, and that the content of each discussion depends upon the faculty member who leads it.
“We’re not doing these just to entertain, we really want to provoke discussion about topics and places that people might not know much about,” she said. “If it’s a faculty member from art they’re going to see the film from one perspective. If it’s from history, if it’s from Huxley, they’re going to use the film differently. So every discussion is a little different.”
At the end of November they will be showing “Solar Mamas” about women in India who are starting solar power businesses. In spring, they are partnering with Western Reads to show one of their films at the Pickford film forum in downtown Bellingham.
“It’s really fun just to see these things, and to have some context for seeing it,” Hamblin said.
