Nashville for Free

12 Monkeys is a weird movie. Most futuristic sci-fi movies are though. However, it has pretty high reviews and a kind of ridiculously awesome twist at the end. Brad Pitt is in it for a minute. Here’s the synopsis:

A stunning adaptation of Chris Marker’s La Jetée, this sci-fi mystery thriller is set in the year 2035, where a lethal virus has wiped out most of the population. A criminal volunteers to go back in time to 1995 to gather information about the origin of the virus and is mistakenly sent back six years earlier than expected.

It’s showing at Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Cinema at 7:30pm as part of the International Lens Series.

-Emily

Has anyone else noticed that ukuleles have become incredibly popular over the past few years? I bet you have. Who hasn’t seen at least one YouTube video of a cute, goofy girl covering a pop song (probably a Hall & Oates song) on the ukulele?

It’s not just hipster girls playing the uke either. Apparently this ukulele resurgence is taking place across different nations, cultures, ages, and musical tastes. People all over the world are turning to this adorable four-stringed instrument to express themselves?

The Mighty Uke is a documentary about this very subject. It’s playing tonight at Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Cinema at 7:30pm. But that’s not all! Right after the screening (the film is 76 minutes, FYI) Nashville’s very own ukulele band, The Ukedelics, will play a 30 minute set.

Uke on!

-Emily

Sexual orientation isn’t just an issue in America. Life for the gay community can be difficult all over the world; it can be a struggle. One place where you don’t really think about the issue is the Middle East, especially Jerusalem. It’s something strangely unexpected. City of Borders is a documentary that surrounds that very culture in the Holy Land.

Here’s the synopsis:

In the heart of Jerusalem stands an unusual symbol of unity that defies generations of segregation, violence, and prejudice: a gay bar called Shushan. This documentary follows the lives of five Israeli and Palestinian patrons as they navigate the minefield of politics, religion, and discrimination in order to live and love openly in a world of conflict.

City of Borders is tonight’s International Lens film. Like usual, it’s being shown at Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Cinema at 7:30pm.

Vanderbilt’s International Lens film series keeps on truckin’ and bringing free movies from around the world to Nashville with today’s film – Our Beloved Month of August. This half-fiction/half-documentary comedy about freewhelling across the rural Portuguese landscape while stopping at music festivals and villages “ captures a charming series of vignettes – eccentric and ­cerebral – an arthouse event, yes, but also witty and emotionally engaged.”

Sounds pretty cool. Just come ready to read unless you speak French or Portuguese, because those are the languages the film is in (thus, International Lens). Oh, and it got an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is pretty darn good.

The screening starts at 7pm tonight in Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Cinema.

-Emily

It’s been a week of what one might call “important movies,” films that are supposed to change your outlook on life. First Miss Representation had two screenings at Lipscomb and now Vanderbilt is presenting a free screening of The Last Survivor in the Sarratt Cinema tonight at 7pm as part of their International Lens series.

The Last Survivor is about just that – people who lived to tell the tale, people who survived genocide and war. It follows the lives of survivors of The Holocaust, Rawanda, Darfur, and Congo and their “struggle to make sense of the tragedy by working to promulgate a civic response to mass atrocities.” It’s probably not for the faint of heart, but this is real life and death stuff, and hopefully, if you choose to see this movie, it will strike a chord in you.

Right after the film there will be a panel featuring two of the survivors featured in the film, Jacqueline Murekatete and Justin Semahoro. It’s definitely something you should stick around for. I’ve had the honor of hearing a few Holocaust survivors speak and while it might not have made me want to join the Peace Corps it certainly changed my outlook on life, at least a little. It certainly made me more aware of triumph over evil.

Again, this film is screening at Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Cinema at 7pm tonight.

-Emily

School’s official back in session, and above everything else it means that International Lens, the free community film series that focuses on international films, is back. Yep, my job has officially gotten that much easier.

This season’s first non-midnight film is one that was filmed in Nashville by Vanderbilt students with Vanderbilt students and community members staring. It’s called Musica Campesina and here’s the official synopsis:

 A brokenhearted Chilean thirtysomething works to regain his equilibrium on the streets of Nashville. He loves America. Will America love him back?

The screening starts at 7pm at Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Cinema.  Immediately following the screening there will be a Q&A session with Producer, Sarah Childress and Director of Photography, Ashley Zeiger.

-Emily

Vanderbilt’s weekly Thursday farmers’ market may not be swarming with food trucks like other established Nashville farmers’ markets, but there is certainly no shortage of food. Every Thursday from 3-6 PM at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Plaza, several farmers and local artisans collect to sell everything from organic fresh pasta (including my favorite, gnocchi) to strawberries to grain-fed beef or even fresh milk.

I’ve been to my share of farmers’ markets, but the one at Vanderbilt is much more of a genuine farmers’ market than the rest of its Nashville brethren. Instead of being made up of booths of sustainable organic soap-producers and other non-food sellers, Vanderbilt’s market is really just about getting groceries from local farmers (and possibly some fresh-cut flowers). Every week the Blair School of Music provides background music for shoppers, but the main point of Vanderbilt’s farmers’ market is definitely buying food.

So if you’re looking for some great locally-produced beets, apples, bread, goat cheese, pork, linguine or whatever, Vanderbilt’s farmers’ market is a terrific place to get it all in one go and at decent prices.

What: Vanderbilt Farmers’ Market
Where: VUMC Plaza
When: 3-6 PM every Thursday until October 27
What to bring: A bag to carry groceries and your appetite

For a list of vendors and seasonal what produce is being sold, visit their website.

-Meryem

Vanderbilt is in the habit of serving up free screenings of stellar smaller-run movies and like the best of addicts, can’t quit it just because it’s summer. Vandy’s Flicx program lets Vanderbilt students (including graduate school students) see movies for free at The Belcourt. Every showing includes a faculty-led discussion afterwards and oftentimes there are special opportunities like a skype conference with the director or a visit by an actor or actress who is a Nashville native.

This summer they will be showing a particularly great slue of great flicks at the Belcourt. In June they are showing all of director Terrence Malick’s major motion pictures leading up to his new movie, The Tree of Life, on June 24. In August, they are showing road trip movies and throughout the summer season there are various other “first-run films” available for (free) viewing. Coming up next in Flicx’s lineup, Queen of the Sun is being screened at 7 pm on June 3. An award-winning documentary on the global bee crisis, Queen of the Sun is directed by Taggart Siegel (The Real Dirt on Farmer John) and looks at the bee crisis from a philosophical, environmental and personal level.

Students can register online at https://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/form/dycUFi for movies. Once registered, students just have to sign in when they get to the theater and then sit back and enjoy their free show. Below are some of the upcoming movies but there are more listed on the Flicx website.

• Jun 3, 7 pm; Queen of the Sun
• Jun 4/5; National Velvet
• Jun 7; Badlands
• Jun 9, 7 pm; Last Mountain
• Jun 10; Incendies
• Jun 11/12; A Place in the Sun
• Jun 14; Days of Heaven

-Meryem Dede

Meryem is a student at Vanderbilt University. She majors in Russian and something else that the editor cannot remember right now. The editor would like to apologize to Meryem for that. Meryem enjoys talking about Russia, being vegetarian, and long walks in the heat. She also has spent time as an editor at The Slant, which we highly recommend because it is intentionally funny.

When you have a school as old and renowned as Vanderbilt you’re obviously going to have some success stories about alumni. Tonight Vanderbilt is going to honor some of its grads who are successful authors at the Heard Library Community Room at 5:30pm. The featured authors are Eric Etheridge, Charles Euchner and Alex Heard.

Specifically these writers have all written about the early years of the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, the official name of the event is apparently “From Jim Crow to the March on Washington: Alumni Authors Look Back on the Beginnings of a Movement,” but I guess they figured that was too long for event listings.

Alex Heard has been featured on N4F in the past for another event involving his work titled The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex and Secrets in the Jim Crow South. The book is about a young African American man who was executed in in 1951 for allegedly raping a white housewife (To Kill a Mockingbird, anyone?). It was named a Best Book of 2010 by the Washington Post.

Charles Euchner’s latest book is Nobody Turn Me Around: A People’s History of the 1963 March on Washington. It’s about the significance of the August 28 March on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech in the context of the overall Civil Rights Movement.

Eric Etheridge is the author and photographer of Breach of Peace, a collection of portraits from the Mississippi Freedom Riders of 1961. Together, these authors will represent a wide berth of perspective on the Civil Rights Movement, and will engage history buffs and authors alike.

Again, this takes place in the Community Room at Vanderbilt’s main library tonight. Things will get started at 5:30.

-Emily

I think you all could probably guess how I feel about International Lens. Free movies every week? What’s there to complain about, I think it’s a great series and I’m glad Vanderbilt does it every school year.

But all good things must come to an end, and as Vanderbilt students get ready for exams and summer International Lens has to come to an end tonight. The last screening of the school year is a film called The Barbarian Invasions. Here’s the plot summary:

Seventeen years after the Decline of the American Empire, a group of left-wing Québec intellectual friends reunite around their friend suffering from terminal cancer. A melancholic retrospective on the utopian ideals of Québecois society in the 1960s and 70s.

Oh yeah, and this movie one the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2004. That means it’s probably good. Also, it means that it’s subtitled, but reading is a small price to pay for a really good movie. It screens tonight at Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Cinema at 7pm.