The critically acclaimed Polish drama “Ida” opens July 25 at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center. Also showing for a second week is director Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi thriller “Snowpiercer.” Both films play through July 31.
From acclaimed director Pawel Pawlikowski, who directed “Last Resort” and “My Summer of Love,” comes “Ida,” a moving and intimate drama about a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who, on the verge of taking her vows, discovers a dark family secret dating from the terrible years of the Nazi occupation.
Anna, an 18-year-old sheltered orphan raised in a convent, is preparing to become a nun when the Mother Superior insists she first visit her sole living relative. Naïve, innocent Anna soon finds herself in the presence of her aunt Wanda, a worldly and cynical Communist Party insider, who shocks her with the declaration that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation.
This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar communism. “Ida” is rated PG-13.
Continuing for a second week at the Ross is “Snowpiercer.” In the film, 17 years have passed since people froze Earth. The few remaining humans live on the Snowpiercer, a train on an infinite loop around the globe. Life at the front of the train is a lavish paradise of drugs and sushi. While, for those trapped at the back of the train, life is short and cruel.
Change comes when Curtis, played by Chris Evans, desperately tries to escape the tail of the train and plans an uprising aided by his mentor Gilliam. What begins as an isolated riot explodes into a mass revolution, an all-or-nothing push to the front of the train, and a war for humanity’s future. “Snowpiercer” is rated R.
For more information, including show times, go to http://www.theross.org or call 402-472-5353.
