University of New England

College of Health Professions announces 2007-08 film/ discussion series

PORTLAND - The University of New England College of Health Professions Film/Discussion Series presents a variety of cultural perspectives on health-related issues to promote discussion of these issues within the context of College's integrated, interdisciplinary health and healing (I2H2) initiative.

The film/discussion series focuses on I2H2 issues related to curriculum development, evidenced-based research and evaluation, and the development and implementation of I2H2 practice models.

The series is free and open to the UNE community. Unless otherwise noted, the films will be shown in the CHP Lecture Hall on the Westbrook College Campus. If you plan to partake of the food and refreshments that will be served at each film, please RSVP by contacting Amanda Whispell  (221-4521) or awhispell@une.edu All walk-ins are welcome for films.

Film Series Schedule

Darwin’s Nightmare
Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007 (5:15 – 8:00 p.m.)
Kash Dutta, instructor, Health Sciences, and Carl Toney, P.A., assistant professor, Physician Assistant Program
Filmmaker Hubert Sauper traveled to Africa - specifically to the Lake Tanzania area - to film the documentary "Darwin's Nightmare." The film examines the effects of globalization on the area since the mysterious introduction of the huge predator fish - the Nile Perch. The Nile Perch has wiped out all other fish in the lake - fish that the natives used to eat, and now a huge industry has built up around the export of the fish to the tables of those who can afford it. This has created a hellish existence and an ecological disaster for those who live around the lake, and Sauper's camera mercilessly records it all.
http://www.cnettv.com/9710-1_53-12471.html
 

The Syrian Bride
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007 (5:15 – 8:00 p.m.)
Amy Lippmann, M.Sc., assistant professor, Department of Nursing, and Cliff Roberson, CRNA, M.S. associate professor, School of Nurse Anesthesia
The story takes place on the wedding day of a beautiful bride, a Druze woman in Majd Alshams, a pro-Syrian village located in the conflicted Golan heights (factions pro-Syrian and pro-Israeli live uncomfortably in Druze villages). Our bride is to marry (by arrangement - she has never met him) a Syrian TV soap opera celebrity. The problem arises in that this will be the last time that she sees her family as once she crosses the border into Syria accepting Syrian citizenship, she can never return to the Golan Heights to see her family. The wedding is further complicated by the return visit of her brother who has been away for eight years having married a Russian by whom he has a son: the brother and the son are in conflict. And to make things worse, the paperwork at the border to allow the bride to join her husband to be in the wedding is held up by political paperwork. How all of these factors impact the bride's future is played out by the families on both sides.
http://www.syrianbride.com/english.html

Away from Her
Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008 (5:15 – 8:00 p.m.)
Regi Robnett, M.S., M.Ed., OTR/L, associate professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, and Betsey Gray, M.S.W., clinical associate professor, School of Social Work
Modest and cozy in scale but ambitious, daring and even terrifying in content, "Away from Her" probes those two impossible and sometimes incompatible organs - the human heart and the human brain  - with a scientist's curiosity and a poet's empathy. The movie is a triumph for actress-turned-debuting director Sarah Polley, working from her own adaptation of an Alice Munro short story about Alzheimer's disease, "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." Polley is 28 years old, so it seems especially impressive that she has placed her youth in service to a difficult story about the degeneration that accompanies age. The result is a movie that is sustained and confident in its smart, wintry, rueful tone but never maudlin, sentimental or "inspirational." –John Beifus, Commercialappeal.com
http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/awayfromher/
 

Motorcycle Diaries
Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008 (5:15 – 8:00 p.m.)
Cathy Hagerman, M.S.N.A., clinical assistant professor, School of Nurse Anesthesia, and Ruth Collard, clinical instructor, Dental Hygiene Program
The Motorcycle Diaries, a mesmerizing look at an asthmatic, rich-boy medical student in the act of discovering his insurgent spirit. The impetus for this enlightenment is a 1952 motorcycle trip that Ernesto (Gael Garcia Bernal), then 23, took with his biochemist pal Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna), 29. Jose Rivera based his script on the diaries both men kept of their eight-month trip through South America, from the snows of the Andes to the heat of the Amazon. Cheers to Walter Salles, the Brazilian director of 1998's Central Station, for keeping the focus intimate and thrillingly immediate. -P. Travers, Rolling Stone
http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/
the_motorcycle_diaries.html

(Press release posted Aug. 21, 2007)