RTF Events
RTF Events
UPCOMING RTF EVENTS
During Thursday night screenings in King Auditorium (Bozorth Hall, Room 112), professors, students, and other members of the academic community provide an introduction and lead a discussion of significant works of film and media. Films discussed are usually part of a larger thematic or course-related series but some are one-off screenings connected to a course or even early cuts of faculty and student works in progress. You can read more about this semester's porgram below.
9/10/26
EDISON FEST SHORTS
The Thomas Edison Film Festival (TEFF) Touring Program brings an exciting selection of award-winning short films from around the world to Rowan University. Currently the only Academy Award® Qualifying Film Festival in New Jersey, TEFF showcases bold new work in narrative filmmaking, documentary, animation, experimental film, and screen dance. For aspiring undergraduate filmmakers, documentarians, and animators, the program is a chance to discover what emerging and established artists are creating now, experience distinctive approaches to storytelling and visual style, and see the kinds of ambitious short-form work finding audiences on the international festival circuit. With over four decades of history, TEFF offers the next generation of filmmakers an inspiring window into the possibilities of contemporary independent cinema.
Introduced by Prof. Jon Mason (RTF)
9/17/26
GHOST IN THE SHELL
Japan | 1995 | 82 min.
Director: Mamoru Oshii
Cast: Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Otsuka, Iesmasa Kayumi, Koichi Yamadera
Initially heralded as the “first adult animated film,” Ghost in the Shell endures not for its racy cover art but rather its cyberpubk aesthetic and sophisticated themes. Ghost is a thrilling pop philosophical treatise on the connection of the human psyche and the physical body, the boundaries between human and machine, and individual and collective memory. This film’s influence can be felt across a wide range of Western media, such as films from Spielberg, the Wachowskis, and James Cameron; games like Cyperpunk 2077; and series like Jonathan Nolan’s and Lisa Joy’s Westworld.
Introduced by Dr. Amanda Landa (RTF)
series: RTF Faculty Selects: ROBOTS!!!
9/24/26
BRICK
USA | 2005 | 110 min.
Director: Rian Johnson
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nora Zehetner, Lukas Haas
Rian Johnson’s debut feature film, Brick, makes a clever and complex twist on what we know as neo-noirs. Brendan Frye, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a loner high school teen still holding onto his past, tries to help his ex-girlfriend when she calls him about something called “the brick.” Her disappearance soon after makes him think there is more to play than just high school drug dealings. The isolation, innocence and intrigue of each character introduced and its overall themes makes Brick a thrilling debut feature.
Introduced by Cecelia Tavares (RTF '27)
series: RTF Student Programming
10/1/26
THRONE OF BLOOD
Japan | 1957 | 110 min.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura, Chieko Naniwa
Throne of Blood, from legendary director Akira Kurosawa, is a classic of midcentury filmmaking and one of the finest adaptations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth ever made. By reimagining Macbeth in feudal Japan, Throne of Blood fuses Macbeth’s supernatural horror with Japanese samurai epic to create an unforgettable story of ambition, betrayal, and murder. This is both a haunting horror classic, and a fascinating study of cultural transposition and adaption across cultures and centuries.
Introduced by Dr. Claire Falck (English)
series: Shakespeare on Screen
10/08/26
THE GREAT BEAUTY
Italy | 2013 | 141 min.
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Cast: Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso
In Paolo Sorrentino’s visually stunning portrait of Rome, aging journalist Jep Gambardella drifts through the city’s lavish parties, ancient monuments, and hidden corners while reflecting on love, art, and the life he has lived. Visually rich, witty, and melancholic, The Great Beauty reveals a city suspended between sacred and profane, decadence and timeless beauty, turning Rome itself into a meditation on beauty, memory, and the passage of time.
Conversation led by Dr. Alessandra Mirra (World Languages)
series: World Languages & RTF present: World Cities
10/15/26
SALOUM
Senegal | 2021 | 84 min.
Director: Jean Luc Herbulot
Cast: Yann Gael, Roger Sallah, Mentor Ba, Evelyne Ily, Bruno Henry
Billed by its creator as a "Southern" (as opposed to a Western), Saloum tells the story of three legendary West African mercenaries forced to hide out in a tourist camp in a coastal part of Senagal know as Sine-Saloum. There, they are haunted -- sometimes literally -- by the legacies of violence, colonialism, and trauma in the region. Combining ancient traditions with modern weaponry, Saloum takes several familiar genre film tropes and reinterprets them through an African lens.
Introduced by Dr. Whitney Cox (World Religions)
series: REC Department Spotlight: Philosophy & World Religions
10/22/26
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH
USA | 2021 | 105 min.
Director: Joel Coen
Cast: Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Brendan Gleeson
Inspired by both Shakespeare’s 1606 play and the stylized horror films of the 20th century (including Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood), Tragedy of Macbeth is a film about the horrors that lie in wait for us within the shadowy corners of our own minds and hearts. Featuring a brilliant lead performance by Denzel Washington as Macbeth, Joel Coen’s Macbeth is both an unforgettable adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s greatest works and a beautiful, nightmarish study of the liminal horrors that lurk on the outer borderlands of our world, and deep within ourselves.
Introduced by Dr. Claire Falck (English)
series: Shakespeare on Screen
series: Shakespeare on Screen
10/29/26
SINNERS
USA | 2025 | 138 min.
Director: Ryan Coogler
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosau, Delroy Lindo
Earning sixteen Academy Award nominations, the most of any film in history, Ryan Coogler's 2025 horror film Sinners tells the tale of twin brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan) who leave the Chicago mob and return to their Mississippi home in 1932 to open a juke joint. Through shared experiences of music, Sinners uses both supernatural and mundane horrors of its setting to explore the idea of cultural connectivity across time and space, as well as the dangers posed by racism, assimilation, and cultural appropriation.
Introduced by Dr. Whitney Cox (World Religions)
series: REC Department Spotlight: Philosophy & World Religions
11/05/26
HER
USA | 2013 | 126 min.
Director: Spike Jonze
Cast: Joaquin Pheonix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde
Set in a near-future Los Angeles, Her tells the story of a lonely writer who develops a relationship with an AI chatbot (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). Writing in the New York Times, Manohla Dargis describes the film as “At once a brilliant conceptual gag and a deeply sincere romance, 'Her' is the unlikely yet completely plausible love story about a man, who sometimes resembles a machine, and an operating system, who very much suggests a living woman.” Her is a tender, funny, and quietly unsettling story about love, intimacy, technology and loneliness.
Introduced by Prof. Ted Partin (RTF/Photography)
series: RTF Faculty Selects: ROBOTS!!!
11/12/26
RUNA SIMI
Peru | 2025 | 81 min.
Director: Augusto Zegarra
This award-winning documentary takes us to Cuzco, Perú, where Indigenous artist Fernando Valencia and his young son, Dylan, embark on a multi-year quest to translate and dub Disney's The Lion King into Quechua, the most widely spoken indigenous language in South America. With humor and heart, Runa Simi becomes a moving portrait of resilience, creativity, and cultural pride, "highlighting the urgency of preserving Indigenous languages and offering a hopeful vision of a future where every voice matters, and every language has a place" (Film is screened in Quechua, Spanish, English, with English subtitles)
Introduced by Dr. Marilyn Manley (World Languages)
series: World Languages & RTF present: World Cities
11/19/26
AND GRAIL HOLY MONTY PYTHON THE
USA | 2026 | 90 min.
Director: Keith David Brown
And Grail Holy Monty Python The is a mesmerizing transformative re-edit of the comedy classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which every word of dialogue has been sorted into alphabetical order (as well as the opening credits). Without discarding a single frame, Rowan student Keith David Brown has meticulously divided and reorganized this familiar film into a spectacularly unfamiliar experience which is simultaneously orderly and chaotic. By presenting words as purely discrete units of data, this bizarre experiment will restructure your perception not only of film, but of language itself. Inspired by Matt Bucy’s Of Oz the Wizard.
Introduced by Keith David Brown (RTF '27)
series: RTF Student Programming
12/03/26
INSIDE OUT
USA | 2015 | 95 min.
Director: Pete Docter
Cast: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling, Richard Kind
Inside Out explores the inner life of an 11-year-old girl Riley through the animated embodiment of her emotions: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. As Riley navigates the upheaval of childhood, the film considers how emotions shape memory, identity, self-understanding, and our relationships with others. Drawing on philosophical ideas about the embodied self and lived experience, Inside Out offers a thoughtful meditation on the fluid, dynamic nature of childhood consciousness and emotional life.
Introduced by Dr. Ellen Miller (Philosophy)
series: REC Department Spotlight: Philosophy & World Religions
12/10/26
WALL-E
USA | 2008 | 98 min.
Director: Andrew Stanton
Cast: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Sigourney Weaver, Fred Willard
This vision of a dystopian future packaged within a dazzling pop-science-fiction love story is a high-water mark for digital animation and simultaneously transports us back to cinema’s silent origins and light-years into the future. It’s the twenty-ninth century, and humans have long since fled Earth for outer space, leaving WALL•E, the last functioning trash-compacting robot, to clean up a pollution-choked planet, one piece of garbage at a time. When he meets EVE, an automaton sent to detect plant life, the pair are launched on an intergalactic quest to return humanity to Earth.
Introduced by Dr. Jennifer Blaylock (RTF)
series: RTF Faculty Selects: ROBOTS!!!
PAST EVENTS
You can also explore past seasons, series, and screenings via the archived Events pages below: