Cal Poly’s Modern Languages and Literatures Department will show a series of German films for students interested in a deeper analysis of the culture.
“A Nation Through the Lens: Historic Events in German Film” will showcase 11 films Wednesdays 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Fisher Science building, room 287. This year’s theme pertains to certain historical and political events within German history.
German department adviser Corinna Kahnke, with an academic background in modern German literature and culture, started the movie nights last year which reach out to all genres of film from love stories to horror.
“The films are a way to supplement the different German classes that I teach, in terms of language, literature and to get a feel for the culture and customs,” Kahnke said. “This is done in a pleasurable way by setting up such film nights.”
Students studying German are assigned three cultural events, and viewing one of the movies enables the student to complete the assignment, but also encourages a deeper learning environment, Kahnke said.
“The last couple of nights have been focusing on German history, and the last movie we saw pertained to Nazi propaganda, with a paragraph in English to explain the situation,” business sophomore Lauren Young said. “It was very educational and gives me the chance to learn about a new culture in an aspect that I’d never heard of before.”
Young, who is pursuing a German minor, said the movie nights offer an out-of-classroom experience.
“It helps me because the movies are in German, and then there’s English subtitles, so I get to hear phrases that reiterates the German language for me,” Young said.
Kahnke’s German culutre, titled “From Flappers to Facists: Weimar Republic Germany” inspired this year’s movie night theme.
“The films provide a wider look at German history, and range in depiction from a film we screened titled ‘Comedian Harmonists’ which were the first German boy band,” Kahnke said. “Other films pertain specifically to the modern 20th century.”
The films are screened based on the connection with the courses Kahnke teaches, but he urges students from all majors interested in German culture to participate in these movie nights, even if just to practice listening to the language while looking through the eyes of German filmmakers.
“Students have been very interested, and most of them will be from German classes, or from the other language departments,” Kahnke said. “People want to get a feel for European cinema, versus the Hollywood cinema that one is used to.”
Movies will include 2007 Oscar winner “The Lives of Others” and 2003 Golden Globe nominee, “Good Bye Lenin!”
The movie nights began Jan. 14, but six viewings remain and everyone is welcome to join each screening. The next movie night is Feb. 18, showing “Legend of Rita” about a radical West German terrorist who abandons the revolution and settles in East Germany.
“We learn a lot in the classroom, but you get to learn a lot about the German culture that we would have never been able to cover,” Young said. “These movies really open new doors that I would have never heard of.”