A new film screening and discussion series invites participants to view top films that explore realities from varied points of view and then explore truths and facts expressed in the medium.

Attendees will view the film, discuss the themes underlying it and then use library and online resources to further investigate what they've seen portrayed.

Fall semester films are: 

Sept. 29, Waste Land, 5 p.m., screening and 7 p.m. discussion, The Depot

Brooklyn-based photographer and mixed media artist Vik Muniz went to his native Brazil to document the lives of the "trash pickers" at the world's largest landfill dump in Rio de Janeiro. These so-called catadores pick through the refuse for items they harvest to sell. Muniz selected several of them as subjects of his own art. Filmmaker Lucy Walker captured the process and the people in the 2010 film that critics uniformly lauded and that garnered many international documentary film awards. The project was part of an international conversation about art and the human spirit at a time when Brazil was in the headlines for its have-and-have not economy while serving as a site for two major global sporting events, the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.  

Nov. 10, The Man Who Knew Infinity, 5 p.m., screening and 7 p.m. discussion, Cabell Library Lecture Hall

Explore diversity in science, genius and the importance of mathematical proofs through Matt Brown's The Man Who Knew Infinity. This 2015 British bioepic tells the little-known story of the life and academic career of the pioneer mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, and his friendship with his mentor, played by Jeremy Irons. Ramanujan, a self-taught mathematical genius, leaves his native India to study at Cambridge just prior to World War I. There, he proves his theorems for the mathematical establishment.