Despite being temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nebraska’s Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center continues to provide access to high-quality films through its website. The movie slate was updated Aug. 5 and includes six new films this month plus multiple productions from New York City’s Met Opera.
Fees to watch the films are shared with the Ross and movie distributors.
The updated film schedule for August is below. Additional details and how to access films are available on the Ross website..
Available now
• “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Rea My Mind” by Martha Kehoe, Joan Tosoni (Canada)
An exploration into the career, music and influence of the iconic musician Gordon Lightfoot. With unprecedented access to the artist and featuring interviews with Sarah McLachlan, Alec Baldwin and more, this intimate documentary follows Lightfoot’s evolution from choirboy in rural Canada to troubled troubadour to international star with hits including “If You Could Read My Mind.” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway” and “Rainy Day People.”
• “You Never Had It: An Evening with Charles Bukowski” by Silvia Bizio (United States)
Producer and journalist Silvia Bizio introduces an evening with writer Charles Bukowski by recounting her time with the author and the discovery of an extraordinary time capsule that lead to the documentary’s creation. The documentary is based on a video interview conducted by Bizio in January of 1981 with Bukowski at his home in San Pedro, California. It was a long night of smoking cigarettes and drinking wine with Bukowski and his soon to be wife, Linda Lee Beighle, talking about all kinds of subjects, from writers to sex, love and humanity. The interview was shot on Umatic tapes which have been digitized and edited along with new shots in Super8 of scenes of Los Angeles today and poems read by Bukowski.
• “Sunless Shadows” by Mehrdad Oskouei (Iran)
Mehrdad Oskouei’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed Starless Dreams (2016), Sunless Shadows takes another look at the lives of teenage girls in an Iranian juvenile detention center. But this time the focus is narrowed: each of the film’s principal subjects is serving time for the murder of a male family member. One by one, Oskouei invites them to go into a room alone, push the red button on the camera and address their accomplices or their victims. With this new confessional approach combined with the ever-deepening relationships he has with his subjects, Oskouei presents a picture of the disenfranchised in an aggressively male-dominated society and of the prison that is their shelter from it.
• “Days of the Whale” by Catalina Arroyave Restrepo (Columbia)
Set in the bustling city of Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city, Days of the Whale follows Cristina (Laura Tobón) and Simon (David Escallón), two young graffiti artists who tag spots around where they live. Simoìn comes from a more working-class background and lives with his grandmother. They are part of an art collective that is the center for a group of young revolutionaries. Cristina is a college kid from an upper-middle-class family who finds herself living with her dad because her mother is a journalist who moved to Spain when threatened by the city’s criminal street gangs. The love that unites them, and their friendship with other artists keeps Cristina from leaving the city as tensions rise when Cristina and Simon’s rebellious, restless spirit leads them to defy this same gang by painting a mural over a threatening tag at the center.
Opening Aug. 21
• “The August Virgin” by Jonás Trueba (Spain)
Eva is about to turn 33 and her decision to stay in Madrid in August has become an act of faith. The days and nights arise as times for opportunities, and during the open air summer celebrations Eva meets other people whom she tries to help, without realizing that she is actually helping herself. La Virgen De Agosto (The August Virgin) is a diary-film: the intimate journey of a woman in search of revelations; a rather philosophical and somewhat mystical summer story which is fun and festive from start to finish.
Opening Aug. 28
• “Made in Bangladesh” by Rubaiyat Hossain (France, Bangladesh, Denmark, Portugal)
Shimu, 23, works in a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Faced with difficult conditions at work, she decides to start a union with her co-workers. Despite threats from the management and disapproval of her husband, Shimu is determined to go on. Together the women must fight and find a way.
