A Global View

While the cosmetic changes and equipment improvements to the Rice Media Center generated the building’s rebirth, there still remained a problem of how to get people to attend the cinema.

That’s where Charles Dove comes in. Dove, who was hired in 2002 to teach a film survey course and to direct the Rice Cinema, has a PhD in American literature from Johns Hopkins University, and he wrote his dissertation on postwar Hollywood films. One of his main concerns was to get more students to the Rice Cinema, so he, along with administrative coordinator Rachel Boyle, created a free cinema pass, good for one semester, for fine arts students who pay their lab fees.

Next, he needed to show films that attracted a slightly younger audience. But that’s where the tricky part lies. Knowing that the Rice Cinema cannot compete with Houston’s vibrant multiplex theaters showing first-run films, Dove had to find out what appealed to the audience, especially those who attend alternative movie venues. Out-of-the-ordinary foreign films, small-scale films, and avant-garde films were certainly in the running, but to his surprise, he discovered that documentaries were the favorite. Why? “I think it’s because there are few other outlets in Houston for that type of film,” Dove explains. “It’s not like you can see them at the Landmark Theatres such as River Oaks or the Greenway.”

Dove put together an impressive list of documentaries, such as the film anthology that premiered in November and explored the outcome of the September 11 attack. The anthology, Dove says, features short films by 11 of the world’s greatest directors, from Samira Makhmalbaf to Mira Nair to Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Another example of the compelling films that Dove has carefully selected is Strange Fruit. The film is based on a song performed by Billie Holiday that indicts lynching in the United States. Director Joel Katz traces the history of the song from its composer to its legacy in the civil rights movement.

Foreign films not easily accessible in Houston also make up part of the Rice Cinema calendar. Of course, those include the obligatory European films, but Dove has gone beyond Western culture to feature movies from places such as Palestine, Israel, China, Brazil, Iran, and Japan. “We are truly diverse,” Dove says. “And that’s our advantage. Being a small venue, we don’t have to show Terminator 3. People already have a chance to see that.”

One of Dove’s goals is to forge links between Rice and the various communities in Houston as a way to attract a larger audience and to ensure that the Rice Cinema presents a global view of films. For example, the Houston Hillel group sponsored the film Trembling Before G-d, which explores the lives of gay orthodox Jews. With the help of the Goethe Center, the Rice Cinema presented three films by Doris Dörrie, a director who provides a unique perspective on European culture.

Being small also gives the Rice Cinema the luxury of presenting film festivals. Over the years, it has offered a gay and lesbian series, a Latin American film festival, and a festival featuring Iranian films. Naficy, who is now chair of the art history department, started the Iranian Film Festival in 1993, and over the years, it became a joint project with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The festival is now a month-long event in January and, since its inception, has featured more than 100 films. “It has become part of the recognized circuit of Iranian film festivals in the country,” says Naficy.

Last year, in celebration of its 10th anniversary, the Iranian Film Festival focused on films made by Iranian women living inside and outside of Iran. Hamid Rahmanian, a male director who lives in New York, and Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, a female director who lives in Iran, were brought to the Rice Cinema for a discussion of their films.
Bringing in directors and critics to talk about films also has been part of the mission of the Rice Cinema. “We don’t just show films here,” says Huberman. “We show them in a setting where often we have speakers, panels, and dialogues. It’s an intellectual environment for filmmaking and film screening.”

The list of filmmakers who have visited Rice over the last decade reads like a who’s who of world cinema: Ouseman Sembene from Senegal, Nelson Pereira dos Santos from Brazil, Atom Egoyan from Canada, Werner Herzog from Germany, Sai Paranjpe from India, and Bahram Beizai from Iran. Roberto Rossellini, Peter Masterson, Eagle Pennell, and Cliff Robertson also have lectured at Rice.

Naficy has been involved in organizing two major conferences on cinema. In 1995, he put together a three-day symposium on exile called “House, Home, Homeland,” which included an array of distinguished scholars from around the world, a variety of art exhibits, and various films. Naficy also helped with the 2003 symposium honoring the life and work of James Blue, the founding director of the Rice Media Center.