CU Cinema offers free Orientation Week screenings for new students

Cornell Cinema offers new students free admission to a sampling of its wide range of programs during Orientation Week, from Sunday, Aug. 25, through Thursday, Aug. 29, and a reduced admission of $3 to screenings on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 30 and 31. Regular admission is $6 general/$5 students and seniors/$4 Cornell graduate students and kids 12 and under. For a complete listing, pick up a Cornell Cinema calendar, visit http://cinema.cornell.edu or call 255-3522. All screenings this week are in Willard Straight Theatre.

Highlights include a screening of the hilarious silent classic, "College," starring Buster Keaton as a love-sick freshman who has to win back his sweetheart by taking to the athletic fields. Live piano accompaniment will be provided by world-renowned silent film pianist Philip Carli. The screening will take place Aug. 26 at 7:30 p.m.

On Aug. 28 at 7:30 p.m., a restored print of French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard's "Band of Outsiders" will be screened. The film influenced a whole generation of hip independent filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino and Hal Hartley. Then on Aug. 29 at 7:30 p.m., students can view a new 35 mm print of the documentary, "Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography," which includes clips from more than 50 visual masterpieces.

Cornell Cinema also is presenting a yearlong series, "Cornell Alums Make Movies," which begins during Orientation Week with screenings of the always-popular "Casablanca," which was based on the play "Everybody Comes to Rick's," written by Murray Burnett '31. The film screens Aug. 26 at 9:30 p.m. and Aug. 31 at 10 p.m.

Jason Livingston '94, former filmmaking student and new managing director of Cornell Cinema, will present a program of his experimental films and videos Aug. 27 at 7 p.m., featuring the multimedia piece "Don't Panic -- It's Organic."

On Sept. 3 at 7:30 p.m. in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts Film Forum, see a short experimental film by Lucas Sabean '94, screening as part of "Underground Zero, Pt. 2," a compilation of short pieces by both established and emerging alternative media artists that reflect on the complicated fallout -- personal, political, economic, cultural -- of Sept. 11.

Among other screenings this year, are Robert Altman's "Gosford Park," edited by Tim Squyres '81, and Martin Scorsese's documentary on postwar Italian cinema, "My Voyage in Italy," edited by Scorsese's long-time collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker '61.