October 6 Western, dir. Manuel Poirier (France), 1997, 124m An offbeat road movie (winner of the 1997 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize) about two vagabonds thrown together in rural Brittany , this is a charming observation of male friendships. Paco, a Basque shoe salesman, and Nino, a pint-sized Russian thief, walk and drive from town to town drinking and bickering, in search of love, shelter, and getting laid. In French with English subtitles.

October 13 Lamerica, dir. Gianni Amelio (Italy/France), 1994, 111m Two Italian rackateers come to Albania just after the fall of the communists to set up a fictive firm and pocket the grants. They need a stooge. They choose an old one in a jail: Spiro. But the youngest Italian, Gino, once alone with Spiro, encounters a few problems. Far from his roots, losing his identity in deep Albania, he begins to change. In Italian with English subtitles.

October 20 Letters from Alou, dir, Montxo Armendáriz (Spain), 1990, 100m An African immigrant is undaunted by the discrimination he encounters in his new home of Barcelona. The film was the winner of the 1990 Golden Seashell award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival for direction. In Spanish with English subtitles.

October 30 Asaltar los cielos, dir. Javier Rioyo & José Luís López-Linares (Spain), 1996, 96m In the voice of the people who met him, we get to know the Spanish communist who murdered the exiled Soviet leader Trotsky. The film goes from Spain to Russia, France, US, Mexico, and Cuba following the underground life of this singular man. Martyr or victim of ideological manipulation? This is a masterful piece of modern history in a documentary film. In Spanish with no subtitles.

October 31 Tren de sombras, dir. José Luis Guerin (Spain), 1997, 88m A silent homage to the origins of cinema, recreating the apparent disappearance of a French photographer in 1930. Almost entirely free of dialogue, it is the haunting images which dominate - of the Thuit Chateau, of Fleury's daughter on a swing (from the first black and white section, which is a reconstruction of the films Fleury himself made), to a beautifully shot Normandy landscape, to the final images of a boat disappearing into the fog. In Spanish with no subtitles.

November 1 Alma gitana, dir. Chus Gutiérrez (Spain), 1996, 95m A young man who wants to become a professional dancer falls in love with a gypsy girl and finds himself in conflict with her toatlly different cultural background. But love can overcome these differences. In Spanish with no subtitles.

November 10 Salut cousin, dir. Merzak Allouache (France), 1996, 98m Alilo comes to Paris to pick up a suitcase full of dresses to smuggle back to Algeria. After losing the address of the dressmaker, he is forced to stay over extra days with his good-hearted but untrustworthy cousin Mok, a mediocre rapper who adapts Jean de la Fontaine's fables and is in debt to his bookie. A realistic tale of the other Paris-the poor tenements of the 18th arrondissement. In French and Arabic with English subtitles. ¨

**All films will be screened in the GRIFFITH FILM THEATER, Bryan Student Center, except Asaltar los cielos and Alma gitana, which will be in OLD CHEMISTRY 116.

**All films will be screened at 8:00pm except Tren de sombras, which will be shown at 2:00pm. ¨For more information, call Jenni Edgerton at 684-6442.

The film series is partially sponsored by the Film and Video Program and the Duke in Madrid Program (Spanish/Romance Studies Department).