Bushel presents Mid-Century Movie Nights, a film series

DELHI, NY—Bushel is pleased to present Mid-Century Movie Nights, a six-part series taking place on Friday nights between May 6th and June 10th at Bushel, 106 Main Street, Delhi. The series kicks off on Friday, May 6 with a screening of Rome, Open City [Roma città aperta], released in 1945, directed by Roberto Rossellini, and featuring Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi, and Francesco Grandjacquet. This program is free to attend with a suggested donation of $5. Seating is limited to 30; attendance is mask optional.

The film Rome, Open City depicts a wide cross-section of Romans who, despite their obvious social, economic, and religious differences, are united in their suffering during the German occupation and their resistance to the Nazis. Shot on location just six months after the end of World War II, the film captures Italy’s recovery, with scenes in actual bombed-out buildings, using a mix of professional and non-professional actors for authentic results. Rossellini directed the film in the documentary format that came to be known as “neorealism,” with immediacy in every frame. Marking a watershed moment in Italian cinema, this galvanic work garnered awards around the globe and left the beginnings of a new film movement in its wake.

Co-curated by Hobart poet Cheryl Clarke and Bushel collective member Mina Takahashi, the Mid-Century Movie Nights film series offers present-day viewers the opportunity to ponder the weight of the post-World War II era on its generation. From Rome to Tokyo, to the US Southwest, then to France, over to the Indian subcontinent, and back to gritty Manhattan, the films ask us to consider their subjects’ alienation, perseverance, and survival. As we witness the 1950s fascist regimes, exploitative working conditions, the loneliness of ageing, the indignities of poverty, the complexity of racial ambiguity, and the subtle and not-so-subtle ways racism and sexism play out, we ask ourselves today, what has stubbornly endured, and what has changed for the better?

The other films in the series are: Tokyo Story (May 13); Salt of the Earth (May 20); La Pointe Courte (May 27); Pather Panchali (June 3); and Shadows (June 10). Full descriptions of the films are on Bushel’s website (www.bushelcollective.org) and in a pamphlet available for pick up at Bushel, 106 Main Street.