Released in 1968, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead film revolutionized zombies from menacing and mythic servants à la Halperin to the cannibalistic harbingers of the apocalypse that trudge across screens today.
Continue reading The Surprising and Enduring Importance of Night of the Living Dead
On April 6, 1993, a seventeen-year-old Zairian immigrant, Makome M’Bowole, was killed while unarmed and handcuffed to a radiator in police custody in Paris, France. What the French police would go on to call an “accident” became another incident in a widespread problem in France at the time, where over three hundred detained and unarmed people had been killed in police custody since the early 80s. Riots were commonplace after these killings in the communities of the victims, which were impoverished and comprised of racial and ethnic minorities as well as immigrants.
Part of a series reviewing films on the Kanopy streaming service, available to all FIU students, faculty, and staff.
As we close in on the 70thanniversary of the release of Vittorio De Seca’s Academy-Award winning film Bicycle Thieves (Ladri de Biciclette),a newly digitally restored version of the Italian Neorealist film will make its Miami premier at the Miami Beach Cinematheque this Thursday, October 18th, at 7:00 p.m., as part of the World Cinema theme of their Interactive Archives Project. This simply constructed classic, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, follows Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani), a poverty-stricken man who’s desperate for a job that will enable him to support his inquisitive son Bruno (Enzo Staiola), wife Maria (Lianella Carell), and their newborn child.
After two years of unemployment, Antonio is finally offered a job plastering movie posters around Rome, but the gig requires him to have a bike, which he can’t afford. Out of desperation, him and his wife begrudgingly pawn off their linen bed sheets in exchange for a bicycle. But, in a heart-wrenching sequence, the bike is stolen on his very first day of work.