Vol. 18, No. 6	Oct. 8, 1998

1998 Women's Film Series will begin Oct. 12

The University of Delaware's Commission on the Status of Women is sponsoring a Women's Film Series at 7 p.m., Mondays, in October and November.

The films, free and open to the public, will be shown in the theatre of the Trabant University Center. A discussion will follow each film.

The series opens on Monday, Oct. 12, with My Brilliant Career (1979). This autobiographical novel (circa 1900) has been transformed into a charming, perceptive, poignant tale about what it was like for a young woman writer growing up in rural Australia, and her choice between love and independence.

Discussion will be led by Cathleen Brooks, sociology.

On Monday, Oct. 19, Mi Vida Loca (1993) will be shown. In this unforgettable look at life in east Los Angeles, Sad Girl and Mousie are gang members and best friends who turn into enemies when they fall out over their love for Ernesto, a local drug dealer.

When Ernesto is shot by an angry rival, the Echo Park Boys deal with Ernesto's murder by searching for revenge, while the Echo Park Girls arm themselves for another kind of struggle. Now Mousie and Sad Girl are going to have to forget the past and get over their differences if they-and their children- are to survive.

Discussion will be led by Susan Miller, sociology.

On Monday, Nov. 9, Shirley Valentine (1989) will be shown. In this film, a wisecracking, completely unpredictable English housewife, bored with the humdrum routine of suburban life, takes a chance on adventure when a friend invites her on a vacation to Greece.

This is a film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning, one-woman play of the same name.

Discussion will be lead by Kathy Turkel, women's studies

Salt of the Earth (1954) will be shown on Monday, Nov. 16. Written, produced, and directed by people who were "blacklisted" during the McCarthy era, this film portrays the true events of a bitter strike in the zinc mines of New Mexico. When an injunction is issued against the workers, the miners' wives take over the picket line, leaving the husbands to care for the homes and children.

This film has become an historic cultural force in itself in anticipating and encouraging a focus on the connection between the public and private lives of men and women, and between the overlapping pressures of gender, race and class.

Discussion will be led by Jean Pfaelzer, English.

The series concludes on Monday, Nov. 30, with The Summer of Aviya (1988). In Hebrew with English subtitles, Gila Almagor's autobiographical film is based on her book about a Holocaust survivor who immigrates with her daughter to the newly founded Israeli state. Aviya is a spunky 10-year-old girl who, like her mother, is a survivor in the face of persecution.

Discussion will be led by Sara Horowitz, English.

For information, call the Office of Women's Affairs, 831-8063.

-Beth Thomas.