Two films, Train of Life and Prisoner of the Mountains will be screened at Scripps College as part of the European Union Center of California’s fall 2004 film series, “The New Europe: Looking East.” The film series will focus on politics in Eastern Europe and the impact of European Union enlargement in this region. Train of Life will be shown on Tuesday, October 12, at 7:00 p.m. and Prisoner of the Mountains will be shown on Tuesday, October 26, at 7:00 p.m. Both films will be followed with a discussion led by Donol O’Sullivan, visiting professor of History at Claremont McKenna College.
The films will be shown in room 119 of the Bette Cree Edwards Humanities Building, located on the Scripps College campus. These events are free and open to the public. For more information and a complete schedule of events, please contact the European Union at (909) 607-8103.
The 1998 French drama, Train of Life, directed by Radu Mihaileanu, details the story of a small Jewish village that organized a fake deportation train in order to escape the Nazis in central Europe during 1941. Seeing little hope elsewhere, the entire village participated in the charade, half the residents were disguised as Nazi soldiers while the other half acted as Jewish prisoners. Train of Life won twelve awards at various International Film Festivals, including the “Audience Award” at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.
Sergey Bodrov’s Prisoner of the Mountains is based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy. The film tells the story of two Russian soldiers ambushed and taken prisoner by Muslim rebels in the forbidding Caucasus. Although a complete understanding never fully emerges, their bittersweet ordeal reveals the human soul of two vastly different cultures. The film was nominated for “Best Foreign Language Film” at the 1996 Academy Awards.
This film series is part of the fall 2004 programming of the European Union Center of California, an intercollegiate institution housed on the Scripps College campus. Part of a network of EU Centers nationwide, the EU Center of California seeks to promote education, scholarly research, and public understanding of European integration and its consequences.