Dear CineCulture Supporters,

I’m thrilled to share that CineCulture is bringing many exciting new films to our community this coming FALL semester at the Peters Educational Center Auditorium (West of Save Mart Center in the Student Recreation Center Building). I will post announcements via email and on the CineCulture website (https://cineculture.csufresno.edu/). If you’d like to subscribe to the CineCulture listserv to receive weekly announcements, email me at mhusain@csufresno.edu.

All screenings are free of charge and open to the public. Parking enforcement is suspended after 4 p.m. on Fridays.

I hope you enjoy the films and can join us for the in-person film screenings and discussions on Fridays! 

** Due to film running time, the opening film on September 4th will begin at 5:15 p.m.**

Dr. Mary Husain

CINECULTURE LINEUP: SPRING 2026

September 4: Life is Life (La Vita Va Cosi) (2025)

Discussant: Dr. Andrea Polegato

Italian Director Riccardo Milani’s film Life is Life is based on a true story.  At the turn of the new millennium, on an unspoiled stretch of coast in southern Sardinia, Efisio Mulas, a solitary shepherd and custodian of times seemingly long past, defends his land from Giacomo, a developer from Milan determined to turn it into a luxury resort. Mariano, the foreman at the construction site, tries to convince Efisio to sell, while his daughter Francesca is torn between her attachment to her roots and the urgent need for change that grips her community. When the dispute winds up in court, a local judge from the area, Giovanna, finds herself deciding the case.  Will Efisio be able to save his beloved coast?  In Italian with English subtitles. 118 minutes: Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6CTNSQPqic

*Due to the film’s running time, the film will begin at 5:15 p.m.

September 11: The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Discussant: Dr. Ed EmanuEl

The Maltese Falcon, an American film noir released in 1941, was an adaptation by John Huston of Dashiell Hammett’s famed 1930 hard-boiled detective novel of the same name. The film, notable for its cast, crisp dialogue, and dramatic cinematography, was Huston’s directorial debut. Some have called The Maltese Falcon the first major work of the film noir style and the greatest detective movie ever made. 100 minutes. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a9YU1SVbSE

September 18: Everybody to Kenmure Street (2026)

Discussant: Dr. Rose Marie Kuhn  

On a quiet May morning, a van marked “Immigration Enforcement” pulls up on Kenmure Street, located in a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Glasgow, Scotland. Two long-standing residents are arrested for alleged immigration violations and face deportation. Word of this raid goes out almost immediately, and friends, students, neighbors, members of the local mosque, and others rush to the area in response. One man forces his way under the van to prevent it from leaving. Dozens, hundreds, and then thousands of people pour in, filming, chanting, and blockading the van in solidarity.

From British executive producer Emma Thompson and Chilean-Belgian director Felipe Bustos Sierra, Everybody to Kenmure Street chronicles this event through interviews with people who were there, and using footage shot throughout the day. Told from multiple viewpoints, the film captures the chaos and confusion but also a sense of joy and celebration. The mosque opens its doors for people who need a washroom. Supporters turn up, passing around pizzas, water and snacks. Everybody to Kenmure Street chronicles this true event and tells a remarkable story of resistance, community care and the power of everyday people coming together to fight injustice. 99 minutes. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOY5T03hHbk‘   

September 25: The Strike (2024)

Discussants: Dolores Canales (Protagonist & Activist), Jack Morris (Protagonist and advocate), Mark Taylor (Project Rebound coordinator at Cal Poly Humbolt)

Amidst the redwood trees on the California-Oregon border sits one of the most infamous prisons in US history. Pelican Bay is a labyrinthine construction of solid cement blocks – a supermax prison – opened in 1989 and designed specifically for mass-scale solitary confinement. For decades, it held men alone in tiny cells indefinitely. Then one day in 2013, 30,000 prisoners went on hunger strike. Directed by JoeBill Muñoz and Lucas Guilkey, The Strike weaves together, thread-by-thread, a half-century of personal and criminal justice history into a single, compelling narrative around the drama of the 2013 hunger strike to end indefinite isolation. Grounded in testimonies from the hunger strikers themselves, the film details how the protest was conceived from a whisper inside the halls of Pelican Bay to a colossal feat across California prisons. With unprecedented access to state prison officials and never-before-seen footage from inside Pelican Bay, The Strike reveals the panic that gripped the highest echelons of state government. Told through the stories of the men who bore the brunt of this practice, the film goes beyond making a case against solitary confinement. It illuminates the power of organizing and prisoner-led resistance, and in doing so, flips the true-crime genre on its head. 86 minutes. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3nnMZD6QHE

Sponsor:  Project Rebound

October 2: Songs of Slow Burning Earth (2024)

Discussants: Olha Zhuba (Director) & Darya Bassel (Producer)

Songs of Slow Burning Earth, by Ukrainian director Olha Zhurba, follows the lives of Ukrainians during the first two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The film captures the everyday resilience and deep personal losses of a country living through war. Through intimate scenes with civilians, children, and aid workers, it reveals how ordinary people endure extraordinary circumstances in the shadow of ongoing violence. The film was awarded Best Film at the 11th Riga International Film Festival in Riga, Latvia, and at the 22nd Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana.  It also won the Jury Award for Best Film at the 27th One World International Human Rights Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. In Ukrainian and Russian with English subtitles. 95 minutes. Trailer: https://vimeo.com/1089342182

October 9: Free for All: The Public Library (2025)

Discussants: Dr. Hazelton-Boyle (Public Administration Professor), and Ginny Barnes (Fresno State Librarian)   

A beloved American institution, the public library’s founding principle is simple: build a place where anyone can enter, free of charge, and encounter a universe of ideas. Co-directed by Lucie Faulknor and Dawn Logsdon, Free For All: The Public Library chronicles the fascinating evolution of the American public library’s trajectory, from the original “Free Library Movement” from the late 19th century to the present, when many libraries find themselves caught in the crosshairs of the culture wars and struggling to survive amid budget cuts and closures. This documentary is especially timely for the Fresno County community where some county supervisors consider transitioning the management of the county library to a private organization.  85 minutes. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD45tDYf6qU

Sponsor: Fresno State Library

October 16: Child of Dust (2025)

Discussant: Weronika Mliczewska (Director)

Directed by Polish director Weronika Mliczewska with the Vietnamese producer Chi-Minh De Leo, Child of Dust tells the story of Sang Thanh Ngô, one of countless bi-racial children left behind by American soldiers after the Vietnam War. Stigmatized and abandoned, he spends a lifetime longing for the father he never had. When he unexpectedly locates his gravely ill father in the United States, he is determined to meet him, even at a heavy cost—leaving his wife, daughter, and grandson behind in Vietnam. In an unfamiliar land, his dream of belonging clashes with an unexpected reality, as he finds himself an outsider both in American society and within a family that never knew he existed. But as Sang searches for his father, he discovers something even more profound—his own strength to break free from the past and redefine his future. 93 minutes. In Vietnamese and English with English subtitles. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkYvsGw7uks

October 23: Make a Face (1971)

Discussant: Karen Sperling (Director)

Make a Face is an unplaceable, enigmatic, and evocative psychodrama that follows the director and performer Karen Sperling as the expressionless Nina, an artist in an ostensibly constant state of dissociation. Critics at the time made facile comparisons to Milton Moses Ginsberg’s Coming Apart (1969), Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965), and Susan Sontag’s Brother Carl (1971), but Make a Face is more unwieldy than those films. For one thing, it’s in color: muddy swirls of brown, beige, and orange fill every image. If anything pops, it’s because of the grey flickers of a television screen or the scant images of buildings’ white walls. Visually, shadows and bounce lighting transform an apartment into a site of mystique. Sperling is part of the Warner family—the granddaughter of Harry Warner, the daughter of producer Milton Sperling—but her film has little to do with Hollywood sensibilities. Independently funded and utterly audacious, Make a Face is built on ideas from psychiatrist R. D. Laing, constructing an experiential suspense film where “dreams, fantasy, and reality are all equal.” One of the film’s most brilliant tactics is the use of an ever-present radio, telegraphing the world’s many woes. Its never-ending presence becomes something to accept, and the way it casts dread serves as an analogue to our present-day doom-scrolling. There are also innovative scenes with hand-crafted split-screen, offering further tension and disorientation. This is, however, not a film about fact vs. fiction or of docufiction antics: it’s about the way that all these things are connected—the destructive state of the world, the collapsing of our social lives and selves. The film begins with a connect-the-dots game of Nina’s face and concludes with a close-up of it, the lighting in constant motion to blur the contours of her head. It’s unclear what emotion she’s conveying—it feels more honest that way. 90 minutes.

October 30: The Late Shift (2025)

Discussant: Dr. Rose Marie Kuhn

With a warm smile and positive attitude, Floria (Leonie Benesch, The Teachers’ Lounge) arrives at the surgical ward of the Swiss hospital where she works as a nurse on the overnight shift. With one colleague out sick and no replacement on deck, just two nurses and a nervous trainee will have to cover more than two dozen patients. The doctors to whom the nurses are supposed to defer are nowhere to be found. Floria juggles endless tasks: administering medication, updating charts, soothing patients, answering phones, and managing complaints. Surrounded by fluorescent lights, the steady beeping of monitors, and echoing footsteps, Floria struggles to fight off exhaustion and maintain her professional demeanor. Every second counts, and every interruption could mean the difference between life and death. In her film, Swiss screenwriter and director Petra Volpe (The Divine Order) skillfully uses real-time tension to examine the emotional cost of frontline care work and the quiet, unglamorous triumph of keeping people alive in a pitiless system. Late Shift is a portrait of everyday courage, both an homage to nurses and a rousing call to address the global staffing shortage in the industry. 92 minutes. In German with English subtitles. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlxEVrEhVes

November 6: American Solitaire (2025)

Discussant: Aaron Davidman (Director)

Slinger came home from war. But the battle isn’t over. American Solitaire stars Joshua Close (Wayward, Fargo) as a veteran unraveling in the aftermath of combat, adrift in a country that celebrates guns but has little language for the damage they leave behind. Written and directed by Aaron Davidman, the film is a raw, urgent portrait of one man’s journey back to himself. The film examines the hidden costs of military service – PTSD, reintegration, and the psychological toll of combat – while confronting how masculinity, identity, and notions of safety have become entangled with America’s relationship with firearms. At its heart, American Solitaire is about the cost of a culture that glorifies violence, creating space for viewers of all perspectives to question assumptions about strength, responsibility, and what it truly means to protect and heal. 95 minutes. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpc7olNGWS4

November 13: Armenian Short Films (titles to be announced)

Discussant: To be announced

Sponsor: Armenian Studies Program

November 20: Pinch (2025)

Discussant: Uttera Singh (Director)

Pinch by Indian-born director Uttera Singh tells the story of Maitri, an aspiring travel blogger who shares a home with her mother in their Indian apartment block. She feels trapped and struggles to find an audience for her travel-centric YouTube channel; her mother disapproves of her career path; and she still works through unresolved grief after the loss of her father. Thinking it will make good video content for her channel, Maitri tags along with her mother and their neighbors, trusted landlord Rajesh and his wife, to a temple during the Hindu festival of Navrati. When she is groped by Rajesh on the way to the festival, she is shocked, furious, and lonely, and impulsively decides to take retributive steps, setting off a chain of events that rocks her tight-knit community. 83 minutes. In Hindi and English with English subtitles. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI8DXCwXOZc

NOVEMBER 23-27: THANKSGIVING BREAK

December 4: To be announced