CU Cinema features filmmakers from Hungary, Balkans

A scene from Hungarian filmmaker Péter Forgacs film "The Danube Exodus," which plays on Sunday night. Forgacs uses home movies and archival footage to explore history and culture.

Throughout the month of October, Cornell Cinema will feature a series of films by Eastern European filmmakers, including acclaimed Hungarian filmmaker Péter Forgacs and various filmmakers from the Balkans.

Cornell Cinema, the Pentangle Program and Ithaca College will welcome Forgacs for a weekend of his documentary work. Forgacs will deliver a lecture, "Memory, Trauma and Film," in the Center for Theatre Arts Film Forum, Friday, Oct. 1, at 4:30 p.m. He also will present three of his films: "Free Fall" and "The Maelstrom," Saturday, Oct. 2, at 7 p.m., and "The Danube Exodus," Sunday, Oct. 3, at 7:30 p.m. All are in Willard Straight Theatre. He also will take part in a presentation at Ithaca College's Park Auditorium Oct. 4 at 7 p.m.

Using home movies and archival footage, Forgacs transforms private documents of everyday lives into haunting narratives of 20th-century Hungary.

The two films Forgacs will present Oct. 2 reconstruct individual histories through his use of home movies and other amateur footage. "Free Fall" is an extraordinary look at the "ordinary" life of Hungarian Gyorgy Peto, a successful Jewish businessman who made home movies of his family, friends and lover between 1938 and 1944. "The Maelstrom" makes remarkable use of footage shot in the Netherlands before and during World War II by a Jewish family in the shadow of the approaching Holocaust.

Cornell Cinema also presents four films from the Balkans on Wednesdays in October.

The series begins with Macedonian-born filmmaker Milcho Manchevski's lyrical "Before the Rain," the first feature film to be made in the newly independent country of Macedonia. Through a parable of intertwined lives, the film attempts to answer the tragic riddle of why the Balkan states are perpetually at war. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1994, making it the oldest film in the series, but following the concerns expressed about Macedonia's fragile ethnic balance when Kosovar refugees poured into the region, it is fitting to revisit this breathtaking film. "Before the Rain" will be shown Wednesday, Oct. 6.

Two films by Belgrade-born director Srdjan Dragojevic are included in the series. In the first film "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame," Dragojevic presents a fictitious Brotherhood and Unity tunnel, one which connects Zagreb and Belgrade, and whose fortunes we follow from 1980 to 1992. "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame" will be shown Oct. 13.

Dragojevic's second film, "The Wounds," will be shown Oct. 20. Based on actual events, "The Wounds" centers on a clever pair of teen-age criminals who rise to destructive success in Bosnia.

Back for a return engagement is Emir Kusturica's carnivalesque "Underground." Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the film sparked so much controversy that it took two years to make it to American screens. "Underground" will be shown Oct. 27.

The Balkan Cinema series is cosponsored with the Institute for European Studies and the Peace Studies Program. All screenings, with the exception of "Underground," will be shown at 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. "Underground" will be shown at 6:40 p.m.

Admission to the films is $4 for students and seniors, $4.50 for the general public.