“Before After”
March 22: Adoption / Örökbefogadás (dir. Márta Mészáros, 1975, Hungary, in Hungarian w/ English subtitles, 99 min)
March 29: Short Film Program
April 5: Bad Axe (dir. David Ziev, 2022, USA, 101 min)
April 12: The Janes (dir. Emma Pildes & Tia Lessin , 2022, USA, in English, 101 min)
April 19: My Lost Country / Baladi Aldaia (dir. Ishtar Yasin Gutiérrez, 2022, Chile/Iraq/Egypt/Costa Rica, in Spanish/Russian/Arabic w/ English subtitles, 96 min)
April 26: Karaoke (dir. Moshe Rosenthal, 2022, Israel, in Hebrew w/ English Subtitles, 100 min)
May 3: Till (dir. Chinonye Chukwu, 2022, USA, in English, 130 minutes)
May 11: Attachment / Natten Har Øjne (dir. Gabriel Bier-Gislason, 2022, Denmark, in Danish and English w/ English Subtitles, 105 min)
The Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies is pleased to present the 30th anniversary season of the Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival, with the theme of “Before After” with an international selection of films addressing momentous, life-changing events, harkening to the life that came before, and facing the tectonic shifts that occur afterward. e season’s program acknowledges also the many cases in which the “After” has not yet arrived or is reversed. The festival will host six filmmakers present for post-screening discussions. Screenings are accompanied by critical introductions by scholars and filmmakers.
The festival opens on Wednesday, March 22 with a screening of the 1975 remastered film Adoption directed by Márta Mészáros. This event will be introduced by Umass’s Shawn Shimpach and include a special Guest Catherine Portuges also known as the curator of the Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival.
This season’s MMFF screenings and events be entirely in person! Weekly screenings will be shown on Wednesdays at 7:30 at UMass Amherst Isenberg School of Management Room 137 (unless otherwise stated). Festival events will begin on March 22 and continue to May 11th. The majority of the films are accompanied by critical, contextualizing introductions by scholars and filmmakers. All events— screenings, introductions, audience Q&As and conversations with filmmakers and guests—are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, all events begin at 7:30pm.
Land Acknowledgment
The University of Massachusetts Amherst acknowledges that it was founded and built on the unceded homelands of the Pocumtuc Nation on the land of the Norrwutuck community.
We begin with gratitude for nearby waters and lands. We recognize these lands and waters as important Relations with which we are all interconnected and depend to sustain life and well-being. The Pocumtuc had connections with these lands for millennia. Over 400 years of colonization, when Pocumtuc Peoples were displaced, many joined their Algonquian relatives to the east, south, west, and north. That includes Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag, Nipmuc, Narragansett, Mohegan, Pequot, Mohican, communities and Abenaki, and other nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy. These Native peoples still maintain connections and relationships of care for these lands today. We also acknowledge that the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a Land Grant University. As part of the Morrill Land Grant Act, portions of land from 82 Native Nations west of the Mississippi were sold to provide the resources to found and build this university.
As an active first step toward decolonization, we encourage you to learn more about the Native Nations whose homelands UMass Amherst now resides and the Indigenous homelands on which you live and work. We also invite you to deepen your relationship with these living lands and waters.
The 30th annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival is curated by Daniel Pope and Nefeli Forni Zervoudaki and presented by the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Barbara Zecchi, Director.