APPLETON, WIS. — Lawrence University is sponsoring a mix of contemporary domestic and foreign independent films in a 10-movie series beginning Sept. 16. All films will be shown at 8 p.m. in the Warch Campus Center cinema, 711 E. Boldt Way, Appleton. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call 920-832-6837.
• Sept. 16 — “Anvil! The Story of Anvil” (documentary, 2008): At 14, best friends Robb Reiner and Steve “Lips” Kudlow made a pact to rock together forever. They meant it. Their band, Anvil, became the “demigods of Canadian metal.”
• Sept. 23 — “The Garden” (documentary, 2008): South Central Los Angeles farmers are eradicated from their community garden.
• Sept. 30 — “Afghan Star” (foreign documentary, 2009): Four contestants risk it all to become Afghanistan’s favorite singer on “Pop Idol,” but will they win the freedom they hope for in this traditional nation?
• Oct. 7 — “Sunshine Cleaning” (2008): An off-beat comedy in which a single mom, in order to raise tuition money to send her son to private school, starts an unusual business — a biohazard removal/crime scene clean-up service — with her unreliable sister.
• Oct 14 — “Rashomon” (foreign, 1950): Akira Kurosawa’s classic Japanese crime drama that turns an episode of rape and murder into an intriguing examination of the nature of truth.
• Oct. 21 — “FLOW: For Love of Water” (documentary, 2008): An award-winning investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st century: the world water crisis.
• Oct. 28 — “Sin Nombre” (foreign, 2009): In a fateful journey of unexpected events, Honduran teenager Sayra reunites with her father to potentially realize her dream of a life in the United States.
• Nov. 4 — “Wendy and Lucy” (2009): Wendy is driving to Ketchikan, Alaska, in hopes of a summer of lucrative work at the Northwestern Fish cannery and the start of a new life with her dog, Lucy. But when her car breaks down in Oregon, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart and she confronts a series of increasingly dire economic decisions, with far-ranging repercussions for herself and Lucy.
• Nov 11 — “Bottle Shock” (2008): The story of California’s early days of wine-making, featuring the now infamous, blind Paris wine tasting of 1976 that has become known as the “Judgment of Paris.”
• Nov. 18 “Cidade dos Homens” (foreign, 2007): Best friends Acerola and Laranjinha discover things about their missing fathers’ pasts that shatter their friendship in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.
