This class examines some of the award-winning films of the Spanish filmmaker Iciar Bollaín, who is among those who began their careers in the mid-1990s. Their work appears against the backdrop of the huge shadow cast by two important and very different sets of circumstances: the rise to international superstardom of Pedro Almodóvar and the consequence of this for the Spanish film industry, and the political shift to the right in Spain that sparked increasing social tension and dissent. Ms. Bollaín’s films weave together an impressive body of work that forms a riveting portrait of the issues that individuals confront in the complex society of the end of the 20th and first decades of the 21st centuries. A careful examination of the lives of the individuals and the social networks in Bollaín’s award winning films Flowers from Another World, (1999), Take My Eyes (2003), Mataharis (2007), Even the Rain (2010), and The Olive Tree (2016) suggests strategies for surmounting the issues that form our existence as individuals, families, communities, and nations, and also lets one see how gender, racial, and ethnic identities all play into this process.

Please Note: Fall 2020 Course Registration Opens Online on Monday, August 10th at 8AM (AZ Time)

ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

• All Fall 2020 courses will be ONLINE ONLY.
• Courses will be delivered online via the Zoom video conferencing platform. All courses will be password protected and only available to enrolled students.
• All class sessions will be recorded and made available to enrolled students for a limited time to assist those who may not be able to attend the live class times.
• The Humanities Seminars Program reserves the right to cancel any seminar that fails to meet registration minimums. If a course is canceled all students enrolled in the canceled course will receive a full refund.