MOVIES EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF CHANGE

In the countryside of France is a quiet and residential neighborhood where a single mother, living with her two young children, must deal with a national transit strike in Paris to reach a life-changing job interview on time. These scenes are depicted in the 2021 French drama film, “Full Time.”

About 200 people attended the opening night reception of the CMU International Film Festival last Thursday in McConomy Auditorium to watch the screening of “Full Time.” Afterward, an exclusive Q&A session took place with the film’s director, Eric Gravel, and French bakery La Gourmandine provided guests with pastries, baguettes and refreshments.

The Humanities Center at CMU started the CMU International Film Festival in 2006 to encourage further interest in the humanities. The festival’s programming booklet describes this year’s theme, “Faces of Change,” as a way to “explore the ways that change manifests.” The festival will continue through April 2.

Regis Curtis, a programming intern for the festival and a senior at Pitt majoring in German, French and West European studies, said the agenda behind the festival is nonlinear.

“We’re not trying to push any single agenda,” Curtis said. “We’re not saying, ‘Here’s the theme and here’s the lesson.’ At the core of what we’re trying to do is really generate discourse and to have a conversation with everyone in the community and everyone else who’s sort of involved in those discourses. We want people to leave less with an answer and more with thoughts they can continue to think about.”

The festival also featured the Pakistani film “Joyland,” which explores the intersection of queerness, masculinity and family in Desi culture, this past Saturday. “Joyland” is the first Pakistani film to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where director Saim Sadiq won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section — which seeks to award directors of non-traditional films.

Before the screening of the film, dancers Naina Roy and Pitt alum Jothika Gorur performed Kathak and Bharatanatyam — two of the eight classical Indian dance forms — respectively. Traditional Desi snacks like samosas, kheer and gulab jamun were provided during the screening. A Q&A session with the director and cast of the film took place after.

During the Q&A session, actor Ali Junejo — who played the main role of Haider — said he spent a lot of time trying to understand his character’s relationships in order to play the role well.

See Film Festival on page 10