Secret military experiments. A television star turned health-care activist. The yearslong battle to remove a Confederate statue in New Orleans. This month, the Film & Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis will screen more than 20 films as part of the 2021 St. Louis International Film Festival.
In all, the festival — which takes place in venues across the city — will feature more than 170 films showcasing the best in contemporary international, documentary and independent cinema.
Event highlights will include a conversation between documentarian Nina Gilden Seavey, who will receive the 2021 Charles Guggenheim Cinema St. Louis Award, and St. Louis Public Radio’s Sarah Fenske. Seavey, a 1978 Washington University alumna, is host of “My Fugitive,” a podcast examining the 1970 burning of the campus’ Air Force ROTC building. The conversation will take place at 4 p.m. Nov. 13 in Brown Hall, Room 100. Read how materials in University Archives helped inform the project.
Dan Mirvish, a 1989 alumnus who received the Guggenheim Award in 2017, will host a screening of “18 ½,” his new Watergate-era satire, in the Tivoli Theatre Nov. 10. In addition, Mirvish will host a special student screening Nov. 11 in Brown Hall, Room 100. A panel discussion with Mirvish and WashU faculty will immediately follow.
The 10-film Divided City program, co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences, will investigate racial and ethnic divides in St. Louis and beyond. Screenings will include “Target: St. Louis Vol. 1” (Nov. 5), “Ferguson Rises” (Nov. 6) and “The Kinloch Doc” (Nov. 6), all three of which will include a post-screening discussion with filmmakers and/or subjects.
Other highlights will include “The Neutral Ground” (Nov. 12), former “Daily Show” producer CJ Hunt’s examination of race in America, presented as part of WashU’s Henry Hampton Film Series; and “Film, the Living Record of Our Memory” (Nov. 20), with Andy Uhrich, curator of the Film & Media Archive at University Libraries.
For a complete list of films and venues, or for information about virtual screenings, visit cinemastlouis.org. For more information about films being screened on campus, visit fms.wustl.edu.
