Independent films screen at Bama Theatre this February

Feb 1, 2016 | Entertainment

By Natalie Brown

When passing downtown Tuscaloosa’s Bama Theatre, many might not be aware of its incredible cultural opportunities for entertainment, which are offered to local movie lovers, artsy folk, and those who are simply fond of a good show.

Bama Theatre’s independent film series, Bama Art House, is halfway through its winter film series. The series includes six films, some of which have won Golden Globes and are nominated for Oscars.

Every Tuesday 7:30 p.m. for the next three weeks, the theatre will transform into a cinematic wonder, showing audiences this years  hilarious, heart-breaking, eye-opening, and thrilling independent films. Admission is only $7 for students, or $8 for general admission and $6 for Arts Council members. The box office opens at 6:30 p.m. and the doors and Bama Bar open at 6:45 p.m.

The first half of the series featured Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated Room, All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records and The New Girlfriend. Take a look at the upcoming three films for February:

The foreign film Mustang, written by Deniz Gamze Ergüven and Alice Winocour, and directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven was nominated for a Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Foreign Film. This fiction piece tells the story of five individually unique, but intimate sisters living in a village in Turkey. The impossibly lovable girls are forced into a completely new and conservative lifestyle halfway into their upbringing after being caught playing innocently with some boys. The story narrates the different ways the girls deal with being so dramatically confined, and how intimately they do itlimbs intertwined in a pile of sisterhood.

The dramatic comedy Taxi is directed, written, and performed by Jafar Panahi. This documentary is done by a man in Iran who has been banned from filmmaking by the Iranian government, so he is forced to get creative: Panahi poses as a taxi driver and makes those who duck into his backseat his subjects. Outlining the contemporary social challenges in Iran, along with the tribulations of being an Iranian filmmaker, Panahi allows his audiences to step into the backseat of his cab through his camera lens and experience the streets of Tehran in a gorgeously raw and authentic way.

Janis: Little Blue Girl, directed by Amy Berg, walks audience members through the life of Janis Joplin, once called the Queen of Blues, as she transformed into the timeless star that we now know her to be. The narration of this biography is illustrated by letters Joplin wrote to family and friends during the evolutionary period of her stardom, along with warm vintage footage that transcends its viewers directly to the season of her fame.