Foreign-Language Film Series

If you'd like to work on your foreign language fluency or just learn about another culture, watching a film in your target language or culture is a good way to do it. Three opportunities are on the calendar this week:

*Wednesday: "To Live" (Chinese, 1994) at 2007 World Film Forum. 5 p.m. Free. West Lafayette Public Library, 208 West Columbia Street, West Lafayette. Sponsored by Purdue University's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. This film, by award-winning director Zhang Yimou, covers the experiences of a small family that loses its wealth in the 1940s to the 1970s.

*Wednesday: "Everything Is Illuminated" (2005). 6-8:30 p.m. Lilly Auditorium, University Library, Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. Although in English, the showing is sponsored by IUPUI Russian Speaking Student Association. Refreshments as well as traditional Russian deserts will be provided. A quick discussion will follow the movie, which deals with a young American Jewish man (pictured), who goes on a quest to find the woman who saved his grandfather in a small Ukrainian town called Trachimbrod that was wiped off the map when the Nazis liquidated Eastern European shtetls.

*Thursday: "Midnight Sun (Taiyo no uta)" (Japanese, 2006). 7 p.m. $5; free for students. Historic Artcraft Theater, 57 North Main Street, Franklin. Sponsored by Japan-America Society of Indiana and Japan Information Center of Consulate General of Japan. Sixteen-year-old Kaoru suffers from a rare genetic disease in which exposure to direct sunlight could prove fatal. Unable to lead the life of a typical teenager, Kaoru is resigned to her fate, finding her only solace in performing as a nocturnal street musician. The safety of her solitary, insular world is jeopardized when she encounters and falls in love with Koji, who challenges her to confront the world in new ways.