by Rod Jones
The Oklahoma City University Film Institute’s series will conclude its 34th year at 2 p.m. March 6 with Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan” in the Kerr McGee Auditorium of Meinders School of Business. The school is located at N.W. 27th Street and McKinley Avenue.
Admission to all films in the series is free. The series is supported in part by the Thatcher Hoffman Smith Endowment Fund and endowments through OCU and the Oklahoma City Community Foundation.
“Leviathan” is the latest drama from Zvyagintsev, the acclaimed director of Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner “The Return.” Leading character Kolya lives in a small fishing town near the Barents Sea in northern Russia. He owns an auto repair shop that stands next to the house where he lives with his young wife and his teenage son from a previous marriage. They are haunted by a local corrupt mayor who is trying to take away Kolya’s business, house and land. When an old attorney friend from Moscow comes to overturn the abuses of modern law, the stakes rise for Job-like Kolya.
“Leviathan” won Best Screenplay at Cannes, the Golden Globe Best Foreign Language film, and was nominated for the same at the Academy Awards. The Biblical echoes reverberate, providing grandeur and closure for this year’s Film Institute theme.
The theme of this year’s season is based on Viktor Frankl’s classic book “Man’s Search for Meaning.”Harbour Winn, director of the series, said the theme is intended to help participants come to understand the purpose of suffering.
“The films in this series stress the importance of an individual’s attitude to existence,” Winn said. “Even when life seems restricted by external forces, we can choose the attitude with which we live and make meaning, to find value.”
A discussion session follows each film screening for those who wish to participate.
For more information about the series, call 405-208-5472 or visit okcufilmlit.org.
