Virtual summer film festival to celebrate love stories from around the world
The annual Stanford Global Studies Summer Film Festival, which will be held virtually this year, will run from July 8 to September 2 and feature seven films from Guatemala, Jordan, Taiwan, Poland, India, Israel, and France.
Based around the theme “Love in the Time of Cinema,” films will explore expressions of love in cultures around the globe. In selecting this theme, festival organizers drew inspiration from a film studies class of the same name taught this year by Usha Iyer, assistant professor of film and media studies. “The course encourages us to view the central cinematic narrative of romantic coupling as a lens to analyze social, political, and economic differences, and connections between different cultures,” Iyer said. This year, the class received a SGS course innovation grant, which supports courses that creatively offer ways for students to learn about topics of regional and global importance.
The festival will showcase movies selected by programs and centers across the Stanford Global Studies Division. The films tackle diverse topics, including a Palestinian man’s experience working on a soap opera in Jerusalem, a Jordanian woman’s romance with an Egyptian immigrant, a widowed Chinese chef’s relationship with his three daughters, and a renowned Iranian violinist’s tragic love story.
The festival will run most Wednesdays from July-September. Audiences can screen the films from the comfort of their own homes, and all post-screening discussions will take place virtually.
For a list of selected films and schedule of post-screening discussions, please visit the 2020 Virtual Summer Film Festival Line-up.