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Seeing the world from a couch

Ragtag's Passport Series hosts films from eight different countries.

By Megan Pearl

Published Sept. 24, 2010

The Passport Series, a contemporary cultural blitzkrieg of film, music, art and a complimentary drink, is under way in its sixth season at Ragtag Cinema.

"It's meant to give people a vision of cultures as they exist currently," Ragtag Cinema Executive Director Tracy Lane said. "Our perceptions of other cultures are primarily rooted in historical facts."

This year, the films are from eight different countries, each playing for a Wednesday and Thursday over a period of eight weeks. Customers are treated to either wine or beer from the country the film is from, as well as contemporary music and art before the film. Afterward, there is a discussion led by someone with knowledge of the culture.

"The discussion is designed to clear up cultural differences," Lane said. "But it usually just becomes more about how the audience interpreted the film."

Brad Prager, an associate professor of German and member of the Program in Film Studies at MU, led the discussion of the German film "Everyone Else." The discussion touched on aspects of the film from references to Brunhilde, a character from German mythology, to the fundamental differences in European and American film tendencies.

"It's not just a screening," Passport Series Programming Director Paul Sturtz said. "It's more of an event."

Sturtz said making it an event creates a friendlier entry point into foreign language films, which can often seem esoteric and off-putting for many.

Lane said although the theater screens international films all year, the Passport Series discussions can be especially beneficial for students to dive into movies with subtitles more comfortably.

The crowd is generally made up of older Columbia residents, rather than students, despite attempts to advertise to students in certain groups on campus, such as those in international or film studies.

Although many people don't have the opportunity to get a contemporary glimpse into other cultures, Columbia itself is an international community — a fact that manifested itself to Lane during the screenings of World Cup games.

"When we showed the World Cup games on the big screen, we saw incredible camaraderie from different nations," Lane said.

Because the multicultural response was so great during the World Cup and people who hadn't been to Ragtag Cinema before were coming to watch the games habitually, Lane said they had hoped for a greater turnout for the Passport Series this year. But, the turnout remains somewhat small.

The programming for the series is conceptualized through finding films that have gained wide critical acclaim, are diverse in nature and have some geographic spread in their origins.

"It's meaningful to people to quote the New York Times rather than just anybody," Sturtz said. "I give more weight to people who do this for a living and watch hundreds of movies a year."

Sturtz said relying on critical acclaim also prevents him from becoming too attached to certain films and thereby skewing his judgment in programming.

"Films I hate, we'll play," Sturtz said. "And sometimes films I love would be a terrible sell."

Although many of the films are appealing to a wide audience, Sturtz said the last film in the series, "Dogtooth," is one of the more unusual films in this year's line-up.

"It's going to be a hard sell," Sturtz said. "Hopefully people will get the humor."