Two years ago the libraries established a Foreign and Independent Films Committee to select DVD’s for our Leisure Films Collection.
Since that time the collection has grown to include more than 4,000 films in 44 different languages, and is the largest collection of its kind in the region. While 83% of the collection (3,464 DVD’s) is in English, the collection includes 166 films in French, 103 in Spanish, 80 in Italian, 57 in German, 56 in Hindi, 40 in Japanese, 32 in Chinese, and 29 in Russian. These were checked out more than 14,000 times last year.
The collection is located near the Cravens Library 4th Floor entrance.
DVD’s can be checked out for one week.
Some of the titles currently offered in the collection include:
 |
The Way We Laughed
A story told in six separate days, between 1958 and 1964, about the lives of two Sicilian brothers. Giovanni, illiterate and hard working, arrives in Turin where young Pietro studies. Giovanni sacrifices so Pietro can become a teacher. But Pietro doesn’t really want to be a teacher, and isn’t much of a student. Winner of the prestigious Golden Lion award at the 1998 Venice Film Festival, The Way We Laughed is a richly layered drama from Gianni Amelio, the acclaimed director of the multiple-award-winning 1995 arthouse hit Lamerica.
Tous les Matins du Monde (All the Mornings of the World )
It’s late 17th century. The viola player Monsieur de Sainte Colombe comes home to find that his
 |
wife died while he was away. In his grief he builds a small house in his garden into which he moves to dedicate his life to music and his two young daughters Madeleine and Toinette, avoiding the outside world. Rumor about him and his music is widespread, and even reaches to the court of Louis XIV, who wants him at his court, but Monsieur de Sainte Colombe refuses. One day a young man, Marin Marais, comes to see him with a request, he wants to be taught how to play the viol. The story is slow-paced and lovingly-shot, and deals with love, talent and labour being lost on the road to fame and fortune in the big city. Even in the seventeenth century, musicians sold out and left emotional wreckage behind.
 |
Xiao cheng zhi chun (Springtime in a Small Town)
Set in the aftermath of the Second World War, in a small town that has been systematically bombed and now mostly in ruins. In a run down old house lives a husband, Liyan with a mysterious ailment, his young sister, and a wife, Yuwen, unsure of what she is looking for in life, certain only that she hasn’t found it yet, and an old manservant. Into this mix comes a doctor from the big city, visiting his old friend, Liyan. Upon arriving he is surprised to discover him married to his childhood sweetheart, the luminescent Yuwen.