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CLC hosts monthly international films starting Sept. 2

Four highly acclaimed international films will be presented for free on Friday nights by the College of Lake County Center for International Education. The Fall Semester films are "About Elly" on Sept. 2, "Embrace of the Serpent" on Oct. 7, "Mon Oncle" on Nov. 4 and "Office" on Dec. 2.

Films begin at 7 p.m. in Room A162 (Anderson Lecture Hall) on the CLC Grayslake Campus, 19351 W. Washington St. They have subtitles when necessary, include adult content and are not suitable for children.

"About Elly" (Iran, 2009) on Sept. 2 comes from the director "A Separation," another masterwork that effortlessly moves between gripping suspense and devastating social critique. A group of 30-somethings - all with conflicts between lives of leisure and impending parenthood - invites an outsider on a weekend jaunt to the seaside, hoping to set her up with one of the men. Then she disappears, perhaps drowned. The investigation that follows, both official and otherwise, reveals more about the rules of modern Iranian life than they are comfortable facing. "New York" says "About Elly" is "breezy, then suspenseful, and gradually, crushingly sad. On its own terms, it's a perfect film."

"Embrace of the Serpent" (Colombia, 2015) on Oct. 7 concerns a turn of the century German researcher in Colombia who becomes deathly ill and acquires a local guide in the hopes of acquiring a rare, perhaps mythical plant with healing properties. Decades later, the same guide meets another explorer with a similar request. But what happened on the first journey - and how will its outcome impact the events of the second? Cryptic storytelling is enhanced by mesmerizing black-and-white location photography in this haunting Oscar®-nominee. "Entertainment Weekly" says it "casts a fever-dream spell that feels completely original … something unusual in today's movies: a truly original experience for the mind and the soul."

"Mon Oncle (France, 1958) on Nov. 4. Actor-writer-director and physical comic extraordinaire Jacques Tati brushes away story and character for a purity of staging and elegant sight gags. This smash hit - winner of the foreign language Oscar® and a prize-winner at Cannes, presents the ever-befuddled Monsieur Hulot navigating a wealthy cousin's ultra-modern home, with little success. "Variety" adored the film's "inventiveness, gags, warmth and 'poetic' approach to satire."

Office (Hong Kong/China, 2015) on Dec. 2. A boardroom satire, set during 2008's economic collapse, is also a 3D musical, directed by a Hong Kong auteur often compared to Scorsese, starring local legend Chow Yun-Fat. As a company prepares to go public, the line between personal affairs and personnel affairs becomes unstable, as do the lines of a living, fluctuating set design that conveys a giant machine, timepiece and dollhouse all at once. "The AV Club" calls Office "one of the most original and imaginative musicals of the last decade … puts Hollywood's recent attempts at reviving the genre to shame."

For more information, contact Chris Cooling, CLC film instructor, at (847) 543-2623 or ccooling@clcillinois.edu. Or visit the series' Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CLCInternationalFilmSeries.

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