Week 13: Death by a Thousand Cuts

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Former IC director Chip Oscarson guest hosts an episode featuring a discussion with Prof. George Handley about the 2016 documentary Death by a Thousand Cuts. The documentary considers the complex relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic along their shared border. The situation on the border discussed by Handley and Oscarson points to the ways that environmental issues are often caught up in a web of historical, racial, social, colonial, and economic forces.

Week 12: The Reason I Jump

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This week IC co-director Marc Yamada is joined by two very qualified guests, Natalie Nielson-Riep (professor, advocate for autism, and mother of an autistic son) and Mikle South (Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience) to discuss the film The Reason I Jump which is based on the book by Naoki Higashida, an autistic boy from Japan. This innovative documentary utilizes immersive sound design, cinematography, and editing to bring the viewer directly into the minds of non-speaking autistic people around the world, transforming the way we think about the condition.

Week 11: The Year My Parents Went on Vacation

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Professor Anna-Lisa Halling of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese speaks with IC co-director Doug Weatherford about The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (Brazil, 2006, dir. Cao Hamburger). The pair consider the historical, geographical, and cultural context of the film and suggest, in particular, that the film celebrates a young protagonist’s coming-of-age in a moment in which Brazil suffers under a military dictatorship while celebrating the nation’s victory at the 1970 World Cup.

Week 9: Poets & Poetry

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This week, we discuss Bicycle Thieves (Vitorio De Sica, 1949) with Professor Dan Paul from the BYU French and Italian department. In this podcast professor Paul talks about Italian Neorealism, the cultural and historical backgrounds of the era, the meaning of the bike in the film, how the masculinity of the main character is portrayed, how society fails the individual.

Week 8: Migration & Violence

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Professor Brian Price speaks with IC co-director Doug Weatherford about the recent Mexican film Identifying Features (2020), winner of the Audience Award (World Dramatic) at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Week 7: Women’s Voices Part 2

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Professors Heather Belnap, Julie Lefgren and Rebecca DeSchweinitz focus their remarks on Antigone (Sophie Deraspe, 2019), Leftover Women (Hilla Medalia & Shosh Shlam, 2019) and All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950).


Show Notes:

Week 7: Women’s Voices Part 1

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In part one of this week’s podcast about Women’s Voices Aline Longstaff, Kif Augustine Adams, and Jacob Hickman discuss Yalda a Night for Forgiveness (Massoud Bakhshi, 2019), Identifying Features (Fernanda Valadez, 2020), and The Vertical Ray of the Sun (Tran Anh Hung, 2000)


Show Notes:

Week 5: Yellow Earth

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This week’s discussion centers on Yellow Earth (Chen Kaige, 1984). Professor in the ANEL department and former IC co-director Steve Riep talks about Yellow Earth in the context of the post Chinese Revolution. This podcast explores the changes that a new generation of Chinese filmmakers brought to the cinema of the 80s, the role of music and the lyrics used in the film, the status of peasants and women in Northern China, and the role of Communism in 1939 Chinese society.