Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) has partnered with the Homewood Public Library to present an  American & European Classic Film Festival beginning on Friday, June 8 and continuing on each consecutive Friday in June (15, 22, and 29) beginning at 2 p.m. in our Large Auditorium.  After each film, one or more of the following professionals will participate in the discussion: Ward Haarbauer, professor emeritus of theatre and associate dean of the school of art and humanities at UAB; Jesse Bates, retired chair of theatre arts, Alabama School of Fine Arts; William Gantt, founder of Southern Literary Trail and director, University of Alabama department of theatre and dance; Ralph Voss, retired professor of English at UA. The Film Festival is free, and no reservations are necessary

The films are:

Citizen Kane is an American mystery drama film by Orson Welles, its producer, co-screenwriter, director and star. The picture was Welles’s first feature film. Nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories, it won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles. Considered by many critics, filmmakers, and fans to be the greatest film of all time, Citizen Kane  topped the American Film Institute‘s 100 Years … 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update. Citizen Kane is particularly praised for its cinematography, music, editing and narrative structure, which have been considered innovative and precedent-setting. The quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a character based in part upon the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Fahrenheit 451 is a British dystopian drama film directed by François Truffaut and starring Oskar Werner and Julie Christie. Based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury, the film takes place in a controlled society in an oppressive future in which the government sends out firemen to destroy all literature to prevent revolution and thinking.  One of the Firemen, Guy Montag, meets one of his neighbors, Clarisse, a 20-year-old schoolteacher. The two have a discussion about his job, where she asks if he ever reads the books he burns. Curious, he begins to hide books in his house and read them.

The Bicycle Thief is an Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica. The film follows the story of a poor father searching post-World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job which was to be the salvation of his young family. Adapted for the screen from a novel by Luigi Bartolini, The Bicycle Thief is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Italian neorealism. It received an Academy Honorary Award in 1950 and, just four years after its release, was deemed the greatest film of all time by Sight & Sound magazine’s poll of filmmakers and critics; fifty years later the same poll ranked it sixth among the greatest-ever films.

Touch of Evil is a 1958 film noir written, directed by, and co-starring Orson Welles.   A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in a Mexican border town, Touch of Evil is one of the last examples of film noir in the genre’s classic period. The film’s reputation has grown since its release, and it is now widely regarded as one of Welles’s best motion pictures and one of the best classic-era films noir. Along with Welles, the cast includes Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, and Marlene Dietrich.