Interfilm/Interfaith, a film series co-sponsored by Hamilton College and the Interfaith Coalition of Greater Utica and hosted at Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute Sinnott Auditorium aims to create a productive, safe space to experience and discuss the confluences and clashes of religious traditions and to create a public forum for thinking about the place of religion in public life today. This is particularly important in a city such as Utica, which has seen wave after wave of immigrant communities settle in, bringing their own religious traditions and sacred spaces, and thus establishing a uniquely diverse religious community.
All films will be held on the last Tuesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. from February through May and are free and open to the public. Each screening will be followed by a brief response by a member of a local religious community, offering leading suggestions and questions about the religious implications of the film. This will be followed by an open conversation among audience members.
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 27, 6:30 PM
Sacred: Shot by more than 40 filmmaking teams around the world, this film immerses the viewer in the daily use of faith and spiritual practice. At a time when religious hatreds dominate the world’s headlines, this film explores faith as primary human experience, and how people turn to ritual and prayer to navigate the milestones and crises of private life. The film, sweeping in its global reach, yet intensely intimate, is a tour de force that unifies these scenes into a single work, told without narration, without experts and, for long stretches, without words at all. http://sacredthemovie.org/
Tuesday March 27th, 6:30 pm
Dalya’s Other Country. A smiling, effervescent teenager, Dalya is the focus of this documentary, which tells the remarkable story of a family displaced by the Syrian conflict and explores a young life caught between highly politicized identities. Dalya comes across as an ordinary Southern California teenager. She takes selfies and goes to prom. She plays sports and hangs out at the mall. She is also the only student at her Catholic high school who wears a hijab. Starting in 2013, the film follows Dalya and her mother through what seems at first a typical immigration experience. They adjust to unfamiliar American ways, even as they maintain the cultural and religious traditions that sustain them. However, they grow tense and anxious as the 2016 presidential campaign unfolds and candidate Donald Trump calls for restrictions on Muslim immigrants. http://www.pbs.org/pov/dalyasothercountry/
Tuesday, April 24th 6:30 pm
Eve and the Fire Horse. Eve is a precocious nine-year-old girl with a wild imagination growing up in a traditional Chinese immigrant family in Vancouver where Confucian doctrines, superstitious obsessions, and divine visions abound. When Buddhism and Catholicism are thrown into the mix, life for Eve and her eleven-year-old prim and authoritative sister, Karena, escalates into a fantasia of catastrophe, sainthood, and social confusion. The journey of a young girl and her sister striving to grow up in world where childhood is lonely and the world is full of wonder.
Tuesday May 29th, 6:30 pm
Sanjay’s Super Team. Sanjay is absorbed in the world of cartoons and comics, while his father tries to draw him into the traditions of his Hindu practice. Tedium and reluctance quickly turn into an awe-inspiring adventure as the boy embarks on a journey he never imagined, returning with a new perspective that they can both embrace. https://www.pixar.com/short-films/sanjays-super-team#short-films/sanjays-super-team-main
Tuesday May 29th, 6:30 pm
Ave Maria. The silent routine of 5 Palestinian nuns in the middle of the West Bank wilderness is disrupted when a family of Israeli settlers come knocking at their door for help after crashing into the convent’s wall. The Israelis can’t operate a phone to call for assistance due to the Sabbath laws, and the Nuns have taken a vow of silence. http://www.avemariafilm.com/
Sponsored by the Program in Public Philosophy and the Alan “Mac” McCullough Endowment at the Levitt Center of Hamilton College
