“Uncharitable,” a one-of-a-kind movie that shows how charitable traditions and prejudices have suffocated the charitable sector and prevented it from leading the charge to truly change the world, opens at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center Oct. 27.
Continuing is “Fremont.”
What if charity could be transformed from a gesture to an answer — to solving the world’s greatest problems? What if everything we’ve been taught about charitable giving is wrong? What if it’s undermining the very causes we love the most? “Uncharitable” is a one-of-a-kind movie that shows how our charitable traditions and prejudices have suffocated the charitable sector and prevented it from leading the charge to truly change the world.
Based on the book, “Uncharitable,” by Dan Pallotta, which became one of the most talked-about TED talks of all time — changing everything from charity watchdog standards to the giving practices of America’s biggest foundations — “Uncharitable” follows the stories of four iconic American charitable efforts that were crippled or destroyed by old ideas. Step-by-step, and with a chorus of leading voices in the field, the movie shows how charity’s real power has been misunderstood and undermined by anachronistic ideas about frugality and deprivation and takes the viewer on a journey from sach-cloth and ashes to a place where unleashed, charities can play the leading role in creating an unimaginably beautiful world that works for everyone.
No topic is more crucial or timelier as we confront a world with increasingly complex problems, with the least of us left behind, and with the growing revelation that we are all interconnected and that our fate lies in our willingness to turn away from old ideas that have not worked and embraced radically new ones that can.
“Uncharitable” is not rated and is showing at the Ross through Nov. 2
Fremont” tells the story of Afghan refugee Donya who lives in Fremont but works at a fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Seeking connection, she decides to send a message out to the world through a cookie in this offbeat vision of the universal longing for home.
Each morning Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) leaves her tight-knit community of Afghan immigrants in Fremont, Calif. She crosses the Bay to work at a family-run fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Donya drifts through her routine, struggling to connect with the culture and people of her new, unfamiliar surroundings while processing complicated feelings about her past as a translator for the U.S. government in Afghanistan. Unable to sleep, she finagles her way into a regular slot with a therapist (Gregg Turkington) who grasps for prospective role models. When an unexpected promotion at work thrusts Donya into the position to write her own story, she communicates her loneliness and longing through a concise medium: the fortunes inside each cookie. Donya’s koans travel, making a humble social impact and expanding her world far beyond Fremont and her turbulent past, including an encounter with a quiet auto mechanic (Jeremy Allen White) who could stand to see his own world expanded. Tenderly sculpted and lyrically shot in black-and-white, Babak Jalali’s “Fremont” is a wry, deadpan vision of the universal longing for home.
“Fremont” is not rated and is showing at the Ross through Nov. 2.
Learn more about the films, including show times and ticket availability.
