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Events

From this Day Forward

Pollak Theatre

Please join us for a film screening/panel discussion of the film From This Day Forward with director Sharon Shattuck and her parents Trisha and Marcia Shuttuck. With her own wedding just around the corner, filmmaker Sharon Shattuck returns home to examine the mystery at the heart of her upbringing: How her transgender father Trisha and her straight-identified mother Marcia stayed together against all odds. From This Day Forward is a moving portrayal of an American family coping with the most intimate of transformations. As the film evolves into a conversation about love and acceptance in a modern American family, it raises questions relevant to all of us. As individuals how do we adapt to sustain long-term love and relationships? Where do sexuality and gender intersect? And how do families stay together, when external forces are pulling them apart?

Free and open to the public.

As We Forgive

Pollak Theatre

Join us for a World Cinema Series film screening/discussion illuminating the theme “Wartime Lives: Enduring and Transcending Violence and Occupation” by analyzing the message and impact of the film As We Forgive (2009). Directed by Laura Waters Hinson and narrated by Mia Farrow comes the award-winning documentary of two Rwandan women who struggle with the face-to-face encounter with the men who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide. These women and men speak for a nation still wracked by the grief of a genocide that killed one in eight Rwandans. Overwhelmed by an enormous backlog of court cases, the government released 50,000 perpetrators back to the very communities they helped to destroy. Without the hope of full justice, Rwanda has turned to a new solution of reconciliation. Come experience through their eyes the journey from death to life through forgiveness. 

Free and open to the public

Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land

Virtual

Join us for Tuesday Night Book Club! Hosted by Monmouth University’s Ken Womack, each month we’ll explore a different novel. All you have to do is Zoom in and join the discussion! This month’s novel is Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Free and open to the public, but RSVP is required.

Special Advance Screening – Miranda’s Victim

It’s 1963, when Trish, 18, walks home at night from her job at a Phoenix theater. Suddenly, a stranger brandishing a knife ties Trish up and forces her into the back seat of his 1953 Packard. He then takes her to a deserted road and brutally sexually assaults her. Determined to have her assailant jailed, Trish reports the sexual assault to the skeptical police. It’s only after Trish undergoes a polygraph test and an extremely humiliating physical exam, that the detectives discover other women have been similarly attacked.  But no one could know that Trish’s commitment to finding justice would trigger a law that would transform a Nation.

Screening Tickets ($100 -$150); Reception Ticket – $135

Spider Thieves

Pollak Theatre

Inspired by actual events, this teenage thriller is a unique social commentary on dreams, class, and unfulfilled expectations in contemporary Chile. Three teenage girls from a Santiago shanty town set in motion a plan to climb buildings and plunder expensive apartments. All they want is to have all the cool and trendy stuff they see advertised in TV commercials and department stores. Word spreads and soon enough they became the notorious “spider thieves.” There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Manuel Chavez with special guest speakers Prof. Priscilla & Gustavo Gac-Artigas

Free and open to the public

We are the Best

Pollak Theatre

We Are the Best! is a story of three young misfit girls growing up in the early ‘80s Stockholm. Pixieish, mohawk-sporting Klara and her best friend Bobo are 13-year-old rebels looking for a cause. Despite having no instruments—or discernible musical talent—the two put all their energy into forming an all-girl punk band, recruiting their shy, classical guitar-playing schoolmate Hedwig as a third wheel. With tender affection for its young characters, We Are the Best! paints a joyous and sharply observant portrait of the rebellious spirit of youth and growing up different. There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Mihaela Moscaliuc with special guest speaker Prof. Joe Rapolla.

Free and open to the public

Titanic: The Musical

Pollak Theatre

Five-time Tony Award winner Titanic: The Musical is ‘Breathtaking’ (The Guardian) and ‘Magnificent’ (The Telegraph). A stunning and stirring production recounting the hopes, dreams and aspirations of her passengers, from the wealthy first class to the third class dreaming of a new life in America.

$23; $21 (senior); $10 (Student); $5 MU Student

BORROMINI AND BERNINI: THE CHALLENGE FOR PERFECTION

Pollak Theatre

This is the story of the most famous artistic rivalry of all time, the one between Borromini and Bernini, but also the story of Borromini’s rivalry with himself: a genius so absorbed by his art that he turns it into a demon that devours him from the inside forcing him to choose death to reach eternity.

$23 (adult); $21 (senior); $10 (child); $5 (MU student)

Wadjda

Pollak Theatre

Young Wadjda dreams of owning a green bicycle. She wants to race a boy from the neighborhood, but the law prohibits girls from riding bikes. Just as she is losing hope, she hears about a cash prize for a Koran recitation competition at her school. Wadjda decides to earn the cash to fulfil her dream.

There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Claude Taylor with special guest speaker Prof. Saliba Sarsar.

Free and open to the public