Interfilm/Interfaith, a film series co-sponsored by Hamilton College and the Interfaith Coalition of Greater Utica and hosted at Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute Sinnott Auditorium, begins on Feb. 27. The goal of the series is to create a productive, safe space to experience and discuss the confluences and clashes of religious traditions and to create a public forum for thinking about the place of religion in public life today. Consistent with that focus, Interfilm/Interfaith debuts on Tuesday with Sacred, a film shot by more than 40 filmmaking teams around the world and that immerses the viewer in the daily use of faith and spiritual practice.
All films in the series will be held on the last Tuesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. from February through May at Munson Williams and are free and open to the public. Each screening will be followed by a brief response by a member of a local religious community, offering leading suggestions and questions about the religious implications of the film. This will be followed by an open conversation among audience members.
Students in Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate’s Religious Diversity in the USA will attend at least two of the films. Plate is the series’ creator.
Dalya’s Other Country will be screened on Tuesday, March 27. A smiling, effervescent teenager, Dalya is the focus of this documentary, which tells the remarkable story of a family displaced by the Syrian conflict and explores a young life caught between highly politicized identities.
Eve and the Fire Horse will be screened on April 29. Eve is a precocious nine-year-old girl with a wild imagination growing up in a traditional Chinese immigrant family in Vancouver where Confucian doctrines, superstitious obsessions, and divine visions abound. When Buddhism and Catholicism are thrown into the mix, life for Eve and her eleven-year-old prim and authoritative sister, Karena, escalates into a fantasia of catastrophe, sainthood, and social confusion.
Sanjay’s Super Team and Ave Maria will be shown on May 29.
The Levitt Center is supporting this project as part of its Public Philosophy faculty seminar program, and it is funded in part by the Alan "Mac" McCullough Endowment.
