News and Events
“MEET & GREET AND AUDITIONS”
The Department of Film, Television, and Theatre cordially invites you to two events.
“MEET & GREET AND AUDITIONS”
There will be a "MEET & GREET", where you can learn about the many opportunities in theatre at Notre Dame and meet our theatre faculty and students.
Wednesday, August 27th, 6:00 pm, Philbin Studio Theatre, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
Following the "MEET & GREET", Auditions will be held for THE DISPUTE by Pierre Marivaux and directed by Siiri Scott. There will be a Second Night of Auditions on Thursday, August 28th, at 6:40 p.m. These will all be in the Philbin Studio Theatre.
CALLBACKS will be on Friday, August 29th.
Audition sign up sheets are currently available in the FTT Office. Audition packets will be available on Monday, August 25th.
The FTT Office is located at 230 DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. Office hours are 8:00-5:00, Monday-Friday.
FTT Celebrates the Graduating Class of 2008
and Presents Senior Awards
On Sunday, May 18, sixty-eight students will graduate with Bachelor of Arts degrees from the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre in the College of Arts and Letters. The FTT faculty and staff send their warmest congratulations to these new graduates. There will be a private FTT Reception for graduates and their families and friends on Saturday, May 17, 1-3 p.m. in the Regis Philbin Studio Theatre where five awards for outstanding academic achievement will also be presented..
Catherine Hicks Award - To a graduating senior for outstanding work in theatre.
Joseph P. O'Toole, Jr. Award - To two graduating seniors for outstanding work in critical film studies and film production.
The Reginald Bain Award - To a graduating senior who produces remarkable theatre projects from any area of theatre during the academic year.
Television Studies Award - To a graduating senior for outstanding work in television studies.
Honors Thesis Presentations
Friday May 2nd, 10am-12pm
The Department of Film, Television, and Theatre will celebrate the achievement of its Honors Students at the Honors Thesis Presentations on Friday, May 2, 2008, from 10:00 am to Noon in the Browning Cinema, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. A reception will follow in 211 DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. The schedule is:
Professor Pamela Wojcik, Director of the FTT Honors Program, Opening remarks
Erin O’Shea, “Watch Me”
Advisors: Professors Siiri Scott, Peter Holland, Kevin Dreyer
Jenni Fong, “A Girl Worth Fighting For? The Implications of Disney’s Princess Culture”
Advisor: Professor Susan Ohmer
Maria Iuppa, “Eravamo Tutti (Lazzaroni, ma) Amati: Social Impegno and Italian Comedic Cinema, 1950 to 1965”
Advisor: Professor John P. Welle
Mary A. Fisher, “Coveted Demos and Better Tomatoes: Contemporary Teen Television and the Small-Town Idyll”
Advisor: Professor Christine Becker
Nathaniel Grams, “The Flight”
Advisors: Professors Siiri Scott and Mark Pilkinton
Brittany Lash, “The Modern Popular Cinematic Hero: A Mythological Analysis”
Advisor: Professor Jim Collins
Jessica Burgers, “Cute, Clever, Dangerous? The Children’s Horror Film”
Advisor: Professor Christopher Sieving
FTT Talks Presents Mike Cerre
“CSNY: Deja Vu”
Saturday, April 19, 7pm and 10pm 
Browning Cinema
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
FREE but ticketed event (631-2800 for tickets)
“CSNY Déjà Vu, is a look back at the politics and anti–Vietnam War sentiment in the music of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. As both a portrait of a band and an examination of artistic process, CSNY Déjà Vu is filmmaking that is self-centered, yet fresh and critical. Today’s generation must be as tired of hearing about the ’60s as we were of an earlier era, and this depiction of the tour is anything but preaching to the converted. Part performance, part commentary, and very much a call for activism, CSNY Déjà Vu is relevant because we ignore the lessons of history at our peril. The film's real value lies in its rejection of simple nostalgia and its ability to focus on the present day.
Featuring music from Neil Young’s controversial Living with War CD, this evocative and edgy film documents reactions from fans to a band that has remained committed to issues of politics and art for more than four decades. Since history seems to repeat itself, perhaps our artists best illustrate what we need to remember.
-SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL.
Mike Cerre (ND '69) who wrote CSNY: Deja Vu, will be present after the 7pm screening to discuss the film and his career as an Emmy Award winning journalist embedded in Iraq... <MORE>
These screenings are sponsored by the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center and the Department of Political Science.
The Second Annual Midwest Undergraduate Film Conference at the University of Notre Dame
April 11-12, 2008 
On April 11th & 12th, the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre will host the Second Annual Midwest Undergraduate Film Conference, which offers area undergraduate students the opportunity to present papers representing their best work in film and media studies. The schedule for the conference, which includes speaker names, paper titles, and panel times, can be found HERE.
The conference is free and open to the public, and it will take place in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center’s Michael Browning Family Cinema. See here for information on how to get to the conference building.
For further information contact: Christine Becker, becker.34@nd.edu, 574-631-7592
Screening & Panel Discussion
2008 ACADEMY AWARD: BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY
Taxi to the Dark Side
Thurs. March 27 at 6:30pm, Annenberg Auditorium, Snite Museum
Panel: Donald Glascoff, the film's producer and attorney; Peter Bauer, former Army intelligence interrogator; Jill Godmilow, filmmaker/ Professor in the Department of Film, Television & Theatre.
Moderator: Douglass Cassell, Notre Dame Law School
The Center for Civil and Human Rights at Notre Dame Law School will screen the Academy Award-winning documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side” at 6:30 p.m. March 27 (Thursday) in the Annenberg Auditorium of the Snite Museum of Art.
Beginning with the case of an Afghan taxi driver beaten to death by U.S. soldiers at Bagram Air Base, the film examines the use of torture and other harsh techniques in the war against terror.
The film features an exchange from a debate between Douglass Cassel from Notre Dame and John Yoo, from the University of California, Berkeley, and formerly an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel for the United States. Asked by Cassel whether the president could lawfully authorize torturing the child of a terror suspect, Yoo answered: “It depends on the purpose.”
Cassel, a Notre Dame Presidential Fellow and director of the Law School’s Center for Civil and Human Rights, has worked as a consultant to the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the U.S. Department of State, and the Ford Foundation, and he was legal advisor to the U.N. Truth Commission for El Salvador.
The event, which is co-sponsored by Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns, is free and open to the public.
FTT Talks Presents Jeffrey Stepakoff
“The Rise of the Writer in Hollywood”
Tuesday, February 19, 7pm
Browning Cinema
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
FREE but ticketed event (631-2800 for tickets)
“The Rise of the Writer in Hollywood”
From a first-person perspective covering his two decades in Hollywood, Jeffrey Stepakoff will trace the rise, fall, and rebirth of scripted entertainment during the era of media consolidation. He will discuss how entertainment became this country’s great commodity, where the business is going and what the WGA strike means for all of us...(more)
Father Arthur Harvey, C.S.C. (1911-2008)
Fr. Arthur Harvey, C.S.C. passed away on Monday February 4th.
Perhaps more than any other person, Fr. Arthur Harvey is considered the father of theatre at Notre Dame. Trained as an accountant but blessed with an abiding interest in the theatre, Fr. Art took over the program at Notre Dame in the mid-1950s and worked tirelesssly to achieve both high artistry and academic integrity. With such student actors in his early years as Phil Donohue, Reg Bain, and Gene Gorski, and supported by a faculty that included Fred Syburg, Fr. Art oversaw a remarkable period of serious and good theatre at Notre Dame. Fr. Art made the University Theatre, founded in 1926, synonymous with his name and his era as director of the program. During his tenure, Fr. Art famously recreated on the Washington Hall stage the grandest of Broadway musicals and dramas of the day, including South Pacific, My Fair Lady, and Long Day's Journey into Night. He modernized and updated Washington Hall in 1956, turning the heavily decorated 19th-century Gregori/Rusca interior into a modern fully functional theatre. Imperious, disciplined, and hard working, Fr. Art was also a master stage director known for his careful attention to detail and his work ethic that consistently produced work of the highest merit. His close professional working relationship with Fr. Ned Joyce helped to keep the theatre program growing and prospering during a time when the arts were less central at Notre Dame than they are today. Fr. Art retired from his day-to-day responsibilities in the Department in 1969 but returned in 1987 to direct Death of a Salesman and in 1991 to direct The Crucible, both to great acclaim. No one loved Notre Dame more, and no one loved theatre more. All of us who worked with Fr. Art will be forever grateful for that opportunity.
Films and Faith Weekend 2008 Features Director Bernard Emond and Midwest Premiere at Notre Dame
The Browning Cinema at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center is venue for the Midwest premiereof Canadian director Bernard Émond’s film, Summit Circle. Émond is scheduled to open the “Films and Faith Weekend: Meditations of Death (and Life)” series with a screening of his 2005 film The Novena. Émond has contributed to more than thirty films and is working on a trilogy of films based on Faith, Hope and Charity. The Novena and Summit Circle are the first two films of that trilogy. “Films and Faith Weekend 2008” is sponsored by the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, the Department of Theology, the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center and the College of Arts and Letters.
The film festival is Friday, February 8 through Sunday, February 10 is comprised of four films, a panel discussion and a reception for Émond which is open to the public. In addition to Émond’s films, the series includes Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and Akira Kurosawa’s Iruku... More >
Director Katia Lund present for screening of ALL THE INVISIBLE CHILDREN, Saturday December 8
ALL THE INVISIBLE CHILDREN (2006), a series of seven short films, will be screened at the Browning Cinema in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center on Saturday, December 8 at 7:00 and 10:00 pm. Katia Lund, director of BILU AND JOAO is scheduled to be present. This is part of Notre Dame's WORLDVIEW Film Series.
Directors are Mehdi Chafer, Emir Kusturica, Spike Lee, Katia Lund, Jordan and Ridley Scott, Stefano Veneruso, and John Woo
NR, 116 minutes, 35mm print
Mandarin, English, Italian, Portuguese and Serbo-Croatian languages with English subtitles
Purchase tickets at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center Ticket office at 574-631-2800 or online at www.performingarts.nd.edu $6, $5 faculty/staff, $4 seniors, and $3 all students
ALL THE INVISIBLE CHILDREN addresses the most pressing and important of social issues – the neglect and exclusion of children and their deprivation of childhood throughout the world. Net profits from the distribution of this film go to UNICEF, WFP and Italian Development Cooperation for the benefit of children. The films include:
TANZA: Mehdi Chafer (Africa) is about a boy named Tanza who is a child soldier, and dreams on having a home and going to school.
UROS: Emir Kusturica (Serbia and Montenegro) shows a gypsy boy called Uros in his last day in a Serbia-Montenegro juvenile prison without any other perspective but returning prison.
JESUS CHILDREN OF AMERICA: Spike Lee (United States) addresses the life of a HIV positive girl called Blanca, daughter of junkie parents who have Aids and the cruelty of her schoolmates in school.
BILU AND JOAO: Katia Lund (Brazil) gives an optimistic approach of two homeless children that fight to survive working on the streets by collecting beer and soda tins and paper to sell in a junkyard, and transporting shops in street fairs.
JONATHAN: Jordan and Ridley Scott (United Kingdom) shows a photographer war correspondent of war who is in pain for his past experiences.
CIRO: Stefano Veneruso (Italy) tells the story a young boy in Naples that picks pockets to survive.
SONG SON AND LITTLE CAT: John Woo (China) shows a tale of fantasy, with a homeless orphan and a spoiled wealthy girl.
Phil Donahue to present his new film BODY OF WAR, Friday, December 7th, Browning Cinema
Directed by Phil Donahue (ND'57) and Ellen Spiro
NR, 87 minutes, 35mm print
Co-sponsored by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
Meet Tomas Young, 25 years old, paralyzed from a bullet to his spine — wounded after serving in Iraq for less than a week. BODY OF WAR is his coming home story as he evolves into a new person, dealing with his disability and finding his own unique and passionate voice against the war. The film is produced and directed by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro; Karen Bernstein is co-producer; and Bernadine Colish serves as editor. The film features two original songs by Eddie Vedder. Body of War is a nakedly honest portrayal of what it’s like inside the body, heart and soul of this extraordinary and heroic young man.
Phil Donahue is a 1957 graduate of the University of Notre Dame and is best known as the father of the modern television talk show. For nearly three decades, he interviewed everyone — every sitting President, world leaders, rock stars, top authors — the famous and the infamous — from Nelson Mandela to Alice Cooper to Henry Kissinger. Every day, he presented issues and controversial topics to the American public — from war and peace to abortion and gay rights. A frequent guest was consumer advocate Ralph Nader. TV Guide named “Donahue” one of the 50 greatest television programs of all time. Phil retired from his hugely successful television show in 1996.
He was deeply moved when he met Tomas for the first time. This was a remarkable and heroic young man. Phil stayed in contact with Tomas as he returned home to Kansas City. As he talked with Tomas about the challenges of creating a new life in a wheelchair, his impending marriage, and his growing political activism against the war, Phil felt that Tomas’ story should be told. Phil decided to make a documentary film about this unfolding journey. Although he had decades of media experience, Phil had never produced a film. He soon enlisted the partnership of veteran filmmakers Ellen Spiro and Karen Bernstein, both based in Austin, Texas; and film editor Bernadine Colish.
For two decades Ellen Spiro has created award-winning documentaries including Diana's Hair Ego, Greetings from out Here, Roam Sweet Home, Atomic Ed & the Black Hole, Are the Kids Alright? and TROOP 15OO. She built her reputation doing small-scale unobtrusive productions — often as a one-woman crew. The noted documentarian is famous for her ability to bring a sense of humor and warm humanism to her social-justice themes. She is a film professor at the University of Texas at Austin and continues to be a prolific filmmaker. Karen Bernstein has extensive experience working with some of the most prestigious producer/ directors in the documentary field, including Susan Lacy (PBS American Masters), Charlotte Zwerin (PBS American Masters), and Henry Hampton (Blackside). Bernadine Colish is an accomplished editor of documentaries for both feature length films and PBS specials.
BODY OF WAR unfolds on two parallel tracks. On the one hand, we see Tomas evolving into a powerful voice against the war as he struggles to deal with the complexities of a paralyzed body. And on the other hand, we see the historic debate unfolding in the Congress about going to war in Iraq.
Eddie Vedder, of Pearl Jam, contributes two original songs to the film. He talked to Tomas at length by phone as he prepared to compose the songs, “No More,” and “Long Nights.” As the end credits roll, we hear Eddie’s tribute anthem to Tomas:
I speak for a man who gave for this land took a bullet in the back for his pay spilled, his blood in the dirt and the dust and he's come back to say
That what he has seen is hard to believe and it does no good to just pray he asks of us to stand, and we must end this war today
And in the song’s final verse, Eddie sings:
No more innocents dying,...
No more terrorizing,....
No more eulogizing,..
No more evangelizing,....
No more Presidents lying,.....
No more War