Harbour Winn Film Institute

CENTER FOR INTERPERSONAL STUDIES THROUGH FILM & LITERATURE

Begun in 1997, through the generosity and creativity of Jeanne Hoffman Smith, MSSW, the Center for Interpersonal Studies through Film and Literature brings a distinguished poet to the campus each year. Seven of the poets have been Poet Laureates of the United States and many of them have been Pulitzer Prize and/or National Book Award winners. Poets Robert Pinsky, Jane Hirshfield, Michael Ondaatje, Mark Doty, Lucille Clifton, Naomi Shihab Nye, Li-Young Lee, Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, Joy Harjo, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Charles Simic, Natasha Trethewey, Carolyn Forche, Claudia Emerson, Terrance Hayes, Tracy K. Smith, Richard Blanco, Marie Howe, Simon Armitage, Chris Abani, and Alberto Rios have been featured so far, along with other poets and writers for additional events throughout the year.

In addition, the Center supports the OCU Film Institute, develops for the university and community an archive collection of quality DVDs, facilitates field trips to OCU for teachers and students from upper elementary through high school, hosts a regular Oklahoma Humanities Let’s Talk About It book discussion series for the university and Oklahoma City community, and collaborates with other campus and metropolitan organizations to support and encourage different groups to work together on creative projects. The director is a member of the English Department and teaches courses in this department as well as other university courses related to the mission of the Center. The Thatcher Hoffman Smith Endowment Fund and an advisory committee support the development of the Center and its programs.

OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY FILM INSTITUTE

The OCU Film Institute offers the university and the greater Oklahoma City community the opportunity to view classic and contemporary international films. Since 1983, the Institute has been screening films every year on to an audience of 50 to 400 people. Each year the series focuses on a theme, and reading recommendations on the theme and individual films are available at the showings. A discussion session follows each screening. The films are also available for university courses. Each spring audience participants have the opportunity to recommend films for the next season, and their preferences are honored to the degree possible. The Institute is committed to showing each season films from many different countries as well as offering each year a film from a place that has not been represented before. Once a film has been screened in the series, it is placed in OCU’s Dulaney-Browne Library where it can be checked out for viewing by an individual.

In 1996, the Oklahoma Humanities Council awarded the Institute one of four awards for excellence in humanities programming over the previous twenty-five years in the state of Oklahoma. The film series is supported by OCU, the OCU Film Institute Endowment, the Designated Endowment in the Community Foundation of the Kirkpatrick Family Fund, and the Thatcher Hoffman Smith Endowment for the Center for Interpersonal Studies through Film and Literature. The creator and director of the Film Institute, Dr. Harbour Winn, retired in 2016, but remains active in the community programming he helped to develop.

Dr. Tracy Floreani, Director

Carol Blackwood, Community Member

Karen Browne, Community Member

Bryan Cardinale-Powell, Chair of Film

Dr. Amy Cataldi, Dean of Petree College

Judy Cawthon, Community Member

Terri L. Cummings, Poet and Community Member

Dr. Mark Davies, Professor of Ethics

Melanie J. Jester, Federal Courts Attorney

Linda P. Lambert, former Board of Trustees member

Vivian Nida, Poet and Retired Educator

Billy Palumbo, Film Faculty

Dr. Karen Schiler, Chair of English & Modern Languages

Jason Stephenson, Poet and Oklahoma State Dept. of Ed. ELA

Sharon Varnum, Community Member

Emeritus consultant and founder, Dr. Harbour Winn

The 42-year-old tradition of providing free screenings of select films for the
Oklahoma City University community and our neighbors continues with this year’s
film series. This may be the only place in town where you’ll get the chance to see
these movies on a large screen.

Each screening begins at 1 p.m. on the second Sunday of each month during the
academic year, and the screenings will take place in the Norick Art Center, 1601 NW
26th Street. Parking is available to the west and north of the building, and if you get
here early you’ll be able to take in the art on display in the Hulsey Gallery. Also,
please make plans to stick around after each screening to share your thoughts on
the film.

“What! You too?”

Friendship on Film

One prerequisite for emotional connection is shared experience, and this year’s selection of films features characters who enjoy friendships based as much on mutual affection as the serendipity of being in the right place at the right time for one another. Things might not always go as planned, but making friends, keeping them, and sometimes parting ways—there’s little more human than that.

March 10

Frances Ha

Directed by Noah Baumbach • US • 2012 • 1h 26m

A New York woman (who really doesn’t have an apartment) apprentices for a dance company (though she’s not really a dancer) and throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as the possibility of realizing them dwindles. (mubi.com)

April 14

Close

Directed by Lukas Dhont • Belgium • 2022 • 1h 44m

Thirteen-year-olds Leo and Remi are inseparable; they spend every waking moment together, playing in the flower fields and sleeping at each other’s houses. However, as they start a new school year, the pressures of early adolescence challenge their bond with unexpected and far-reaching consequences. (mubi.com)

April 26-28

Wide Open Experimental Film Festival

Experience cutting edge experimental filmmaking from around the world at the 3rd annual Wide Open Film Festival. Screenings will be held at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.