Global Visions film series lists schedule The Global Vision Film Series is a forum that promotes diversity at UND and within the community of Grand Forks at large through the venue of internationally acclaimed award winning independent films. Film is a rich medium for the exploration of cultural diversity, the effects of globalization, human rights abuses, and the broad spectrum of human experiences that constitutes the nature of culture and the human condition. Every other Tuesday, the Global Visions Film Series shows a movie at the Memorial Union Lecture Bowl. Each film is an award winning film, recognized for its artistic scope and social impact. All films are open and free to UND students, faculty and Grand Forks community members. Several departments on the UND campus offer the films shown in the Global Visions Film Series as extra credit opportunities for students, who must write reviews and critiques of the issues presented in each of the outstanding films shown each semester. All films are Tuesday evening at 7 p.m., except “Nobody Knows” which is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 8. Films and dates follow: • "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," Sept. 25 (Ireland/UK) • "Nobody Knows," Oct. 8 (Japan) • "Curse of the Golden Flower" Oct. 23 (Hong Kong/China) • "Bamako," Oct. 30 (Mali, Africa) • "Who Killed the Electric Car," Nov. 6 (U.S.A.) • "L’Enfant," Nov. 20 (Belgium/France) • "Quinceanera," Dec. 4 (U.S.A.) The Global Visions Film Series is funded by the Multicultural Awareness Committee, a standing committee in the UND Student Government "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," directed by Ken Loach, won the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. It takes its title from a 19th Century ballad by Robert Dwyer Joyce, one stanza of which ends: "…The mountain glen/ I'll seek at morning early/ And join the brave united men/ While soft winds shake the barley." Joyce's words, sung at a funeral in the film, seethe with a mix of pain and idealism, an undertow of plaintiveness and lament. And they distill the essence of Loach and writer Paul Laverty's film, which is set during a relatively brief time in the Irish guerrilla wars against the British, from late summer 1920 through the treaty signing of December 1921 and its aftermath. It's about the brave men in the rustling barley and morning light, and the bloodshed and fratricide that inevitably await them, especially the brothers Damien (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Padraic Delaney). "Wind" is a beautiful film, harrowing, tough and rife with grief, and it uses the cloud-veiled Irish countryside as a backdrop for a truly sad tale of the time when the battles were fought, the Irish Free State was formed, the British left part of the country and the Irish rebels, formerly united against the English, finally splintered into factions of various political hues and began killing each other. What the film ultimately says is that the horrors of war cannot be assumed lightly -- even though the Irish were right to revolt and the British wrong to occupy their land. It also says, typically for Loach, that the Irish and English working classes have more in common with each other than with aristocrats like the film's haughty informer Sir John Hamilton (Roger Allam). Loach ("Land and Freedom," "Kes") is one of the finest political filmmakers in the world, and an unusually stubborn one. He maintains a radical stance to this day, even as now, the prospects for peace, via a power-sharing agreement, are on the upswing. But "Wind" is no socialist tract. The movie is about the collision of political principles and human bonds and values, and it doesn't treat any of them lightly. Loach is on the side of the revolutionaries, but there isn't a moment of violence in the film that glorifies it or makes it exhilarating. Even though this is a period film, a grim, clear-eyed realism informs every scene. That's Loach's method. He's the master of the docu-drama or the realist social film, and "Wind" is one of his masterpieces. Courtesy of mwilmington@tribune.com -- Marcia Mikulak, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, marcia.mikulak@und.nodak.edu, 701-777-4718